(We weren’t the only ones wondering if Jona “got a good shot”! He’d taken this photo on a film camera, so he had to wait a while to find out too!!! It did not disappoint!)
You know those pictures where an outsider’s perspective is actually the BEST way that it could be taken? This was one of them.
The Place: Artist’s Drive, Death Valley National Park.
The Day: A Sunday in February.
The Scene: Rachel is driving through the coolest terrain ever, on the smoothest, single-lane, one-way road. It’s Artist’s Drive in Death Valley National Park. This place has blown our mind for three days, and we’re capping off our trip by going on this drive we were told we NEEDED to see.
The Tradition: The tradition we have whenever we go to beautiful places (if safety permits) is to sit on the frame of the car and hang out the window and take in the clean air as we go through. The cool wind blows all over your face, and your cheeks start to hurt from smile-laughing, and sure, you kind of feel like a dog there, hanging out the window— but you can’t blame a dog for doing it. It’s an experience best described as The Epitome of Living. Does it seem really teenager-y? Sure. But it’s an embrace of my Youth, and This Life, and an appreciation of all the best things on this earth– like national parks and times with friends and the joy of racing through the wind.
The All-of-a-Sudden: As we were sitting with our heads on top of the car, all of a sudden, Pili looked back and said, “That guy is taking our picture over there!” In this completely empty terrain, the one car stopped in the turnout on the side of the road had a guy in the front seat holding a camera in front of his face. Pili and I waved for a few seconds, and Rachel kept driving.
The Meeting: A few miles down the road, after we’d pulled over to adventure at another part, we decided to stop at a lookout point along the drive. In the parking lot, we saw a silver box car— the same one with the person who had taken our picture— and we decided to leave a note for the driver who was somewhere in the colorful hills, probably taking pictures of other fascinating strangers across the way. We sat on the edge of this lookout, observing people from afar and speculating on who the photographer from the silver car was. “I think it’s him, because he’s taking pictures of people across the way.” “It’s him with the black camera bag!” “No, look! It’s him, because he’s holding his camera vertically. People don’t take pictures vertically on a camera— except the guy who took ours!” Our question was soon answered when a young man walked up the hill to where we were sitting and said, “Were you the girls sitting out the car window?” We laughed and acted casual– as if we hadn’t just been speculating and wondering the converse question (“were you the guy taking our picture through your front windshield?”).
We explained how we’d left a note with our emails on his car, and he explained that he took his pictures on a film camera, so it would take some time to find out whether the photos turned out. It was such a quickly passing moment that he didn’t have much time to check the settings on his already blind-product film camera, so he wasn’t sure if they’d even turn out— but he would send them in case they did.
We got to meet our passing friend Jona, and passed him one more time later on our drive, again as he was stopped along the side of the road. That next time, we waved and he waved back, no camera in hand.
The Waiting: And then we wondered. Every few days for the coming weeks we wondered, “did the photos turn out?” “Is he going to send them?” And I got nervous, because for some people, if their photography isn’t perfect, they won’t send it… But I have a passion for redeeming mediocre to bad photos and editing them back to life. I also had to take into consideration that some people take a long time to develop their film. If we were at the beginning of a roll, he might not be ready to develop his film for another few weeks, if not months!
The Result: But then, fast-forward to tonight, at a time when I didn’t expect it at all… I opened my email— and there it was! The Photo. The photo we’d been waiting for and wondering about, and it. was. PERFECT! It captured the beauty of Death Valley in the background. The car and us figures hanging out of it were in focus. And then I realized: without a stranger, we would have NEVER gotten a photo like this one. Because who stages a moment like this? You just live it. A first-person picture wouldn’t have fit the whole car. A photo facing the front of the car wouldn’t have captured the stripes on the mountain. Taken from any place other than the road, the angle wouldn’t have demonstrated the asphalt’s hilly, curving terrain. This picture was the right place, the right time, the right moment. And even meeting Jona— just minutes before he left (and our having arrived only minutes earlier)… it just lined up so… perfectly.
Right place, right time, right everything.
There’s cool moments that you sometimes get to simply experience (a gift in itself)– but every once in a while, God gives you a nice little coincidence of a treat. This photo is the culmination of several little coincidences stacking up on each other, complete with a picture to print and a story to tell. What a nice product of several perfect moments…
What are the chances that this photographer would be here at the same time as us? What are the chances that he would choose this turnout to pull into, that we would choose that minute to start hanging out the window, that, even after stopping to run around, we would see that silver parked car miles later on the same lookout? What are the chances that his film camera would capture correctly when he had only seconds to set this picture? What are the chances that Pili would notice the car BEHIND us taking pictures, that we would wave when he did, that he would take the snapshot in time? What a crazy set of coincidences.
Thank you, Jona, for taking this special picture of us, and for sharing it. You are amazing.
To see more of Jona’s photography, click here…
Or here…
Or here!
The More the Marianer 