Millaa Millaa Falls, Atherton Tableland, Queensland – Australia

It goes without saying that we can all appreciate the beauty of nature as depicted in photographs. Mother Nature smiles at as daily from our computer desktops, from posters on our office walls, from gorgeous photography shared by friends on our Facebook feeds. However, no matter how often you imagine yourself standing at the foot of a thundering waterfall or dipping your toes into a perfectly blue ocean, nothing can properly prepare you for the actual experience of being there.

Transcendence is a living record of just such an experience for me – my first visit to Queensland’s majestic and much-photographed Millaa Millaa Falls. I’d seen pictures of this positively magical place many times… but the overwhelming size of the falls themselves and the crashing of the water as it flowed. The heady, fragrant scent of the moist March air that swirled around me. Nothing could prepare me for that. The lone gentleman in the foreground clearly felt the same, standing frozen in place for quite some time in absolute awe of the scene in front of him.