Somewhere Over the Rainbow……

As I stare out of my Airbnb window, I can’t help but be a creeper and take secret pictures of a random elderly couple under a perfect tree taking their own pictures of a rainbow. I thought it was such a cute moment and wanted to capture it. I have done this several times. I see an authentic moment, take a picture, and hope when I show the subject, that they don’t punch me in the face for being a creeper. See full pic below:

Here is my justification though! There are so many artificial, posed photos out there (too many to count on this blog alone), that it is rare to have someone take a candid sweet moment without you knowing. I think people should do this all the time. Here are my reasons:

When you see people being loving and kind to each other in a moment, why wouldn’t you want to document that?
It opens the door for a great conversation. This particular couple was visiting from Jersey, and he was a photographer himself doing a year of bird photography. NOT a Big Year as I assumed and was laughed at.
They now have a cherished random moment that they weren’t expecting to be documented and may be thrilled to have such a photo. If they aren’t, they can just say no “thank you,” and you delete that shit or use it in a blog to show how philosophical/preceptive of the world you are.
Then a random National Geographics employee might come across your blog and decide that this is a gold mine of an opportunity because this blogger clearly has it.
All of a sudden, people are paying you to run around the world and take authentic pictures of anyone and everyone. If you can catch an authentic picture of an influencer, you get paid triple.
As the tens of dollars are rolling in, you discover people are positioning themselves in adorable settings in hopes of being captured.
You accidentally capture one of the inauthentic-authentic photo fakers and ruin your career in a single shot.
As you eat corn out of a can under Tower Bridge with Kate and William (see prior blog), you decide to open an ice cream shop and never take another photo again.

Well that was a rabbit hole…..

Back to NZ! In Kaikoura, you have the mountains meeting the ocean. I have never seen something like this. I absolutely loved this small town. It is a place for hiking, dolphin kayaking, and seal searching.

After a good night’s sleep, we had a kayaking tour to find the dolphins. OOOOOOoohhhhh my goodness did we love this trip. First off, we got a good workout. I think through this entire trip, NZ has kept me the most fit. Then you have the chase. We paddled as fast as we could to break away from the group with our leader (creating a private tour) and discover the dolphins on our own.

Success! They freaking went between us on our kayaks. It was so awesome. I absolutely loved it. The tour company was Kaikoura Kayaks.

As many of you know, I love Microsoft. As an accountant, the company has provided so many resources for my career. So, I felt like I must recreate it’s most iconic screensaver. The famous fit-girl running on a beach by a big rock. It reminds all cubical rats to question their choices, and I wanted to help the common fellow accountant feel confident in their respectable positions and be thankful they aren’t the moron running to nowhere on a cold-ass beach. We didn’t get the exact same angle, but it is indeed the same spot, Wharariki Beach near Abel Tasman National Park.

We played around on this very windy beach for about an hour.

Then we walked back through the sheep filled field, and I was tempted to pet them. I was too scared though. I am unaware of sheep temperament and didn’t want to risk being bitten. But OMG these damn baby sheep (aka lambs) are soo cute.