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If the photo was taken with an Android device, and uploaded to Google Photos, most likely Google associated your location with the GPS coordinates in the EXIF data of the photo.

I was at Zion a few weeks ago, and did not see any equipment on the road or in the parking lot that was automatically capturing license plate data, if that's what you're asking.

Did you take the photo to remember your tag # for parking purposes?

That's what it would have been for me.

Where did you see the photo exactly? Was it a close-up of your license plate?