Salem Amtrak Depot at Night Canvas Print

NOTE: The "Fine Art America" watermark will not appear on purchased products.

Amtrak train #14, the Northbound Coast Starlight makes a stop in Salem, Oregon on a rainy evening in late February 2004. My wife and I had just gotten off of this train when I saw this shimmering night scene in front of us. I propped myself against a light post to steady my camera for a fairly long exposure, and made one of my favorite photos of the trip.

Photo Copyright James B. Toy.

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...