Perfect Timing – A story about being accidentally perfectly prepared.

I should just point out that I am very rarely accidentally prepared. When I meet people who are always “accidentally prepared” I’m always thinking it can’t be so. They totally planed it. Had to. Why do I doubt their constant twist of luck? Well it’s really because I’m the kind of person who has to plan being prepared, double check for things and may even still leave my phone charger at home. (See my last post for proof). I mean one time I left Baltimore to drive home with Sterling to Richmond, got all the way to a gas station in DC and realized I couldn’t get out to go to the bathroom. Why? Oh because I left my shoes at home… in Baltimore… my shoes… I mean… really? Who does that? Me. Alex Robertson.

So when I say we were perfectly accidentally prepared for these images, I really mean it. We were driving down 250 around Charlottesville when I saw it, a soy bean field, not just any soy bean field- it was the perfect soy bean field. By the time I had turned to Sterling to mention my idea, we had passed it…. Now usually I would just say to myself “aw shucks” and move on with my day but I just couldn’t get over the way this soy bean field just said “common, take a picture here, you know you want to”. Plus normally I don’t ever have my tripod with me. My big, kind of heavy tripod. But on Saturday, I did. 🙂

Why did I have it “accidentally”? Well because when I went on my road trip to LA, my friend’s sister took it back with her in their car to RVA (this was in JULY). About three weeks ago I finally went over to her house to pick it up and just hadn’t cleaned it out of my car yet… yeah. So tripod? Check.

So I turned to Sterling and I said “You know, we could stop somewhere and take pictures if you wanted…” in a, ‘I mean only if you want to’ way. Without skipping a beat Sterling goes “Yeah, definitely. Like where?”

So we turned the car around, parked in someone’s side yard (thank you whoever you were), put our hazards on, jumped out of the car with my camera and tripod and went for it. These pictures are a product of the perfect self timer, gorgeous glowy light and just going for it. I don’t do PDA so for me, running through a field to Sterling and dipping for a (smooch) (I even hesitate to admit it, that’s how much I don’t do PDA) while cars were driving by would have normally clammed me up. But that’s why Sterling is the ying to my yang. When I worry about the cars passing by and the property owners who may come and holler, he just says “What’s the worst that could happen? They ask us to leave and we leave.” And so I ignored the cars, set the timer and went for it. We accidentally got the perfect light at the same time we passed the perfect field (on 250, when we usually take 64). The perfect accidental images with the greatest guy around.

So moral of the story, don’t clean out your car? Not exactly. The real moral I have to tell myself is to just go for it. I have to remind myself to forget the noise around me, jump into a field and love the little moments that can be so accidentally perfect.