Foggy Day on Carmel Beach Poster

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Every now and then I'll make a photo that is, for me, the definitive representation of a place. This image is the one for Carmel Beach. It was a very foggy afternoon and I had driven to several areas of the peninsula to capture the mood in black and white. I stopped to walk along Scenic Road, making pictures of fog shrouded houses and the beach. I came across this scene with the famous Frank Lloyd Wright house on Carmel Point framed by this Monterey Cypress tree.

After taking a couple of shots, this man came walking down the beach. It is fascinating how the tiniest detail can make or break a photo. The same shot without him was little more than a static snapshot. His presence nicely conveys the Carmel lifestyle. The man is obviously well dressed in nice slacks and a sweater, suggesting he is comfortable in a business setting. But his lone presence on this beach shows he also values quietness and...

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...