Mr. Toy's Mental Notes

My online Photography Gallery and Picture Shop had a bit of a makeover this past week, so it seems like a good excuse to tell the story of one of my favorite floral images. 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 ...

There was an article in Friday's Monterey Herald about groups promoting special California license plates that help fund the arts. In exchange for a higher vehicle license fee you get plates with a pretty picture and a good feeling knowing you're supporting something worthwhile. The story reminded me of something that happened back in the mid 1990s when these plates were first introduced. I was working as the assistant manager at the Crossroads Cinemas in Carmel. We had a small display promoting the arts plates on a counter in the lobby. It held brochures that enabled people to order the new plates from the DMV. The front of the brochure had a picture of a sample plate with "4 ARTS" as the plate number. Seeing this, a woman brought the brochure to me and asked if she could get license plates that had "4 ARTS" on them. I explained that every plate had to have a unique combination of numbers and letters, so probably not. Well, she t...