Take Nothing But Pictures (Or Not Even)

You can't bring a road trip home

The other day I was—as I often am—driving around the Virginia countryside, between Winchester and Middleburg, a beautiful landscape of farms, horse pastures, and genuine small towns. It was one of the hazy days, and while everything had a gray-orange tint instead of its usual green-blue, it was still lovely. The smoky air almost made everything look more expansive and more mysterious.

Several times in the car I saw or passed a scene that seemed like it would make a perfect photograph: a country road with a cathedral-like ceiling of trees; a beautifully landscaped driveway into a farm; the view of a valley spotted with hay bales and cows from just the right spot on the highway.

That disarming “Wow, that’s beautiful!” is always followed by, “That would make a great photo, but there’s no way to take it!” I see these mental photographs, but there’s often nowhere to pull over. Sometimes the roads are empty enough to simply stop the car, or even back it up—like the old auto touring days, before the roads were clogged with other cars. But often, these perfect pictures simply can’t be captured. And pointing the camera at them often doesn’t do them justice anyway.