Tourists managed to capture a photo of Mt Unzen, a decade volcano, erupting in ’91 before the pyroclastic flow (ash) overtook them. It makes me wonder if this passage by DFW applies to people who take photographs (or write poems or make art) in their last moments:
The love is not the love one feels for a job or a lover or any of the loci of intensity that most of us choose to say we love. It’s the sort of love you see in the eyes of really old people who’ve been happily married for an incredibly long time, or in religious people who are so religious they’ve devoted their lives to reigious stuff: it’s the sort of love whose measure is what it has cost, what one’s given up for it. Whether there’s “choice” involved is, at a certain point, of no interest… since it’s the very surrender of choice and self that informs the love in the first place.
There is a rather incredible video of a man running away from the flow. The wind seems to be in his favor and the ash blows back toward the mountain before it envelops the stationary camera setup:
It took 11 years for the flow caught up to Harry Glicken, who, if you recall, was the man who narrowly escaped the St Helens eruption after David Johnston subbed in for him. (Maurice and Katja are the other volcanologists with him at the time.)
I hope all of this posting is sparking your interest (as the unfortunate ad in the newspaper clipping puts it).