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NOTE: The logo watermark will not appear on purchased products. Photo copyright James B Toy

Th Goodyear blimp Columbia N4A is moored at McNary Field in Salem, Oregon, around September 1978. The blimp is commonly used for advertising and aerial coverage of sporting events. A large grid of colored lights can be seen along the lower half of the blimp which were used for a computerized light show as it flew over the city at night.

I shot this image on Eastmancolor 5247 film, which was primarily intended for filming motion pictures. In the '70s and '80s remnants of the film were sold by a few photo labs for 35mm still cameras. The system allowed for producing both slides and negatives from the same roll of film, which had certain advantages. But there were some distinct disadvantages as well. The negatives could not be printed by any photo lab because they required special filtration. And unfortunately Eastmancolor had a nasty habit of fading badly after as little as ten years...

In the fall of 1959, Mr. Toy entered this world at a place called Carmel on California's Monterey Peninsula. Nine years later his family pulled up stakes for the rain-soaked city of Salem, Oregon where he never quite fit in. When he was 12, he and his mother viewed an exhibit of photographs by a Salem newspaper photographer, which inspired him to take his first photography class. During his teenage years he gradually developed his eye for composition and his skills with light and exposure. Though he did not pursue photography as a career, he has continued to document his observations of the world on small frames of film. In 1984, Mr. Toy and his wife Heidi returned to the Monterey Peninsula where his heart belonged. In 1997, on a bit of...