In the waning days of his presidency, I’ve been going through the takes of Barack Obama’s 2008 and 2012 campaigns I photographed: the 2008 Democratic National Convention in Denver and Obama’s three campaign stops in Pueblo. The sequence I keep going back to is from the third day of the 2008 convention, when Delaware Sen. Joe Biden accepted his party’s vice-presidential nomination. President Bill Clinton spoke earlier that evening as well (running well over his scheduled speaking time). At the close of Biden’s speech, Sen. Barack Obama, the soon-to-be Democratic presidential nominee, appeared on stage with Biden and his wife, Jill.

I almost missed that moment. This was my first convention. I thought the evening’s pomp was over. I was filing my Biden and Clinton photos with a weak 3G wireless card from the bowels of the Pepsi Center when Josh Buck, a shooter for the Longmont Times-Call texted, suggesting I get my ass back to the arena since Obama was going to make an unscheduled appearance. True story.

The Obama-Biden handshake photo turned out to be a precursor to a remarkable political relationship, culminating in Obama’s presenting Biden with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor, earlier this month. NPR reported Obama said “this also gives the Internet one last chance to talk about our ‘bromance.’”

It’s a relationship that likely won’t be repeated in my lifetime.