the driver and the pink jaguar

In the Fall of 2009 The Correspondent® asked me to be her chauffeur in San Francisco for a few days while she conducted business. I agreed but first I had to renew my driver’s license. Mine had been expired for so long that I had to go through the whole DMV process all over again. That meant long lines, driving school, horrible police videos, eye exams, body cavity searches and finally, the road test. My driving instructor was from Kingston, Jamaica and spoke with the most wonderful accent. I barely knew what he was saying half of the time but despite that thick Jamaican patois, I learned to yield, merge and control my road rage all while doing a three-point turn. I passed all of the tests and got my license.

Once in California, a couple of days were spent driving the highways from San Jose to Santa Cruz then down to Monterey and Carmel. In San Francisco we acquired vertigo via the Golden Gate Bridge and negotiated the hairpin turns of Lombardi Street nearly taking out a couple of tourists. There is footage of this somewhere. The rest of the time in the city I set out on foot to soak up some of the unique architecture and neighborhoods and possibly shoot some cars. Most of my photographs require the streets to be pretty flat so I wasn’t sure I would find much in a city known for being steep and hilly but I was optimistic. I had just finished a long walk to the end of Haight Street where it meets Golden Gate Park when I spotted this fantastic pink Jaguar XJ. This is probably the only shot I have where there isn’t a building in the background. I wish I knew who drove this car and the story behind painting the car pink. I think it looks great even if it is slightly beat up. If you look closely you’ll see a small pink ribbon sticker on the rear triangle-shaped side window. Very appropriate for October.