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The Photo In Front Of You

Be open to changing your plans when the perfect shot finds you

Tuolumne Meadows in Yosemite National Park is one of my favorite places on the planet. Years ago, I camped there for an entire summer. It was there, surrounded by granite domes and spires, that I first read J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings. I remember finishing the last chapter, closing the book and staring up at Cathedral Peak. At that moment, I was in Middle Earth. The already magical landscape had shifted just an inch and become truly otherworldly. When I walked back to camp, I was afraid to talk to my friends for fear that not English, but the language of hobbits, ents or elves might spill from my lips.

When I returned last month to this magical meadow, all those memories tumbled back into my brain. As my wife, Lynette, and I rose the first morning, I had no less than 20 hikes planned out to revisit all the special places I knew so well.

We started off down the trail and hadn’t gone more than a quarter-mile when, almost at the edge of my peripheral vision, I was aware of a particularly lovely slab of granite beside the Dana Fork of the Tuolumne River. “Darn,” I thought, “didn’t really want to see that. I had our day all planned. We were heading for a falls near Glen Aulin just five miles away. Surely it would be more beautiful than this stretch of river...I mean it’s got to be...it’s farther away.”

Yeah, right. I’ve spent an awful lot of time in my life, as I’m sure many of you have, trying to hike just a little farther, climb just a little higher, in the belief that the most beautiful view was just over the next ridge. True, sometimes it was, but just as often, I passed right by a place of truly exceptional beauty in my mistaken belief that the most extraordinary place was the one that was farthest away.

Lynette and I stopped and turned toward the river. For maybe 100 yards, a slice of heaven had settled here on earth. Water, granite, trees, sky, light and line all came together in astonishing loveliness. I had walked this stretch of river many times and never noticed it. Was it some elfin world that only could be seen when the viewer was prepared and ready? Well, that’s what it felt like. “Be worthy, Dewitt,” I thought.

We sat by the river’s edge for a long time, just drinking it all in—the light, the sound, the colors, the textures—a totally encompassing three-dimensional, five-sensory experience. We knew, however, that we would eventually want to transform it into a two-dimensional, one-sensory experience in a small size. Eventually, it would be time to take pictures.

When that time arrived, there I was in a place where, anywhere I looked, I saw a photograph. In what seemed like another elfin spell, time disappeared and, before we knew it, the day had slipped to evening.

Reluctantly, we forced ourselves to head back to camp. Lying in the tent that evening, “chimping” images on the screen of my digital camera, I was amazed at how many enchanting shots I had taken. “Guess I was just in the zone,” I thought.

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