Ironically, this is one of the easiest and yet most challenging photos I have ever created of Milford Sound. Easy because there was no hard trek required, no wild  helicopter flight, no early wake ups, or anything else of a dramatic or adventurous sort. I simply had to walk 10 ft from the footpath to the water’s edge and take a picture. The challenge lay in getting the conditions just right.

In a place that is famous for its bad weather, finding a calm, beautiful sunny day with puffy clouds filling the sky is indeed a rare thing. I’ve visited Milford Sound more than 20 times in my life and more often than not it’s storm clouds that have greeted me. And though thunderous rain is one of the most famous attributes of Milford Sound and exciting to experience in its own right, it’s impossible to deny just how beautiful this location is under fair weather.

I’d been wanting to create an image of Milford Sound under blue skies for years. But usually I only got a small fraction of the conditions that I needed. When it wasn’t raining, either the skies were totally clear or they were a pure, flat gray. Often the wind would be blowing or the tide churning, disrupting the peace of the scene. And in those rare moments when there was a reflection, the conditions weren’t as bright and joyful as I wanted to see. In short, there was always something standing between me and the shot I had in my mind.

Finally, after dozens of photographic attempts over years of visiting, everything came together for me on this particular day. After breakfast I was taking a leisurely stroll along the foreshore in mid morning light. As the sheer walls of the fjord came into view I was stopped in my tracks. Here was everything I had been hoping for: Blue skies, puffy clouds, calm reflections, and a dream-like view the one of the most beautiful places on the planet. I quickly pulled my camera from my bag, hurried to the water’s edge, and created this image before the fickle weather gods of Fiordland could snatch the moment away.