MURRAY – “Every picture is a bit of a surprise,” says photographer Ron Toth, whose large-format photographs of conifer cones will be on display at the Paris Academy for the Arts, in Paris, Tennessee, starting with an opening reception on Sunday, Sept. 21, from 2-4 p.m.
Even though he’s been taking photographs for more than 50 years, Toth still marvels at what he’s able to capture with his camera and, in more recent years, his computer.
Inspired by a collection of hundreds of conifer cones he first began collecting in graduate school at the University of Massachusetts, where he studied botany, Toth, now 77, created the 70-photograph series of conifer cone close-ups that range in size from 16 x 16 to 32 x 40 inches.
“I subscribe to the Georgia O’Keeffe philosophy of art,” Toth says. “She painted these in-your-face flowers. When asked why, she said, so “people will stop and look at them,’” he paraphrases.
The retired biology professor (Northern Illinois University), who lives in Murray, Kentucky, with his wife Cheryl, is also working on a book based on the series.
His photography setups are meticulous, as you might expect from a research scientist who spent decades examining and cataloging specimens under a microscope. Using a vise or two to hold the cones in place, Toth shot thousands of photographs with his Canon EOS 5D Mark IV, making subtle changes to lighting, perspective, contrast and composition.
“When photographing people, you have to have this instinct of when all the components are balanced and take the picture. My mind doesn’t work that quickly,” Toth says. “I take a picture, think about it, retake it, move things around, and retake it again.”
He’s also honed a technique called focus stacking with the help of YouTube how-to videos for Zerene Stacker software. With focus stacking, Toth can shoot multiple images of the same scene, each with a different focal point, and the software combines them to create a single image with a significantly greater depth of field than any individual shot.
“My goal is that viewers will see the forms hidden in the cones (size ranges, scale shapes, symmetry, fragility, solidness, texture, etc.,” Toth writes in his artist’s statement.
“To most people a pinecone is some small ‘spiny’ brown thing to be kicked out of the way or driven over,” he continues. “Few people really look at them.”
With the exhibition that runs through Nov. 15, 2025, Toth hopes to change that, but he insists he’s “no artist.” “I’m more of a presenter,” he says. “But if I’d seen the German Expressionists sooner, I might have been a painter.”
This is Toth’s fifth photography exhibition. Previous shows in Illinois, Paducah, Mayfield and Murray, focused on night scenes, microscopic extractions and earlier conifer cone images.
The prints for “Conifer Cones” were made on a Canon image PROGRAF inkjet printer, mounted on foamcore and framed. In addition to the large-format photos on display, smaller prints will also be available for sale. Although Toth donated the majority of his vast cone collection to the Lovett Pinetum in Strafford, Missouri, select specimens will be on display with the exhibition. For more information, see https://www.schoolforarts.org/.
