Consider The Lily Poster

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In Carmel, California at the Church of the Wayfarer, there is a Biblical Garden featuring plants mentioned in the scriptures. I have often gone there in the spring and summer to see what's blooming. One foggy August day in 1995 I found this lily. I was trying out the 25 speed Kodak Royal Gold film, to see how it worked with flowers. There are very few color-print films that properly capture the subtle tones of a flower, at least to my satisfaction. As you can see, this film was a winner.

The summer fog of the Monterey Peninsula is a blessing for this type of work. It provides a soft, even light, avoiding harsh shadows and highlights. There was a slight breeze, so I had to be careful with movement. I set the aperture as small as I dared without getting too slow a shutter speed, and waited several minutes for the breeze to subside long enough to make the photograph.

Keeping with the theme of the Biblical...

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...