Corn Lilies

I was first introduced to corn lilies by seeing images made by other photographers, most notably Ray McSavaney, John Sexton, and Bruce Barnbaum. I saw my first actual corn lily (at least consciously) at Ray McSavaney and Neil Chapman's Mono Lake workshop, and was immediately taken by the abstract and lyrical quality of the plant and its leaves. While very difficult to photograph, I enjoyed working with the corn lily so much that I returned to Virginia Lake after the workshop had ended with Dr. Bernard Lewinsky and Ray to photograph them some more.

Both Bernie and I exposed many sheets of film on many different plants, and Bernie has produced some very fine prints from his negatives. After I was all shot out, I was amazed to find that Ray was still working with the same single composition he had started with when we first got there an hour and a half earlier. I quietly watched Ray work for another half hour - peering at the ground glass, moving his camera around, adjusting his dark cloth he had drapped below the plants, checking his Polaroid test shots - until he finally got what he wanted. Then he exposed an actual sheet of film. I learned more in that half hour of just watching Ray than I had in years of fumbling around on my own.

I next stumbled onto corn lilies while participating in the faculty led hikes in the Utah Uinta mountains for Westminster's freshman orientation. I didn't photograph any plants then, as it was late August and the plants were withered brown and yellow with drought nor did I have my camera with me, but at least I now knew they were also in Utah. The following June, my esteemed colleague, Dr. Judy Rogers, tipped me off that there were corn lilies closer to Salt Lake City after she stumbled into them at Brighton while leading a bird watching trip for her May term course. The more recent photographs are from outings I've made to Brighton with Dr. John Aldrich and Dr. Peter Conwell, both very fine and accomplished large-format photographers. While neither Peter nor I have made any actual prints yet, the prints John has made from his negatives would just blow your socks off.

So, what the hell is a corn lily? Well, here is what I found out about it: Info

Thumbnails of some of my photographs from these trips are shown below. Just like a book, the photographs in this exhibit are copyrighted by the author, 1999, 2001. All rights reserved. Mine, mine, mine. Actually, I don't care if you download (and thus copy) an image or two from the exhibit as long as you don't sell it, trade it, include it free with anything you are selling or trading, or otherwise gain anything from it other than the pleasure of viewing it. All of this, of course, is just common sense but, since the Web seems to be somewhat uncharted in terms of property rights, it never hurts to say it.

Note: The scans of these negatives won't do justice to the tonal separation, quality, and detail in an original photograph (we always say this - hey, you haven't seen the originals, how are you going to know.).

Click on a thumbnail below if you would like to see a full size picture.

Corn Lily
Yosemite, California
June, 1999

Corn Lily
Brighton, Utah
June, 2001

Christopher A. Cline
Westminster University
1840 South 1300 East
Salt Lake City, Utah 84105
(801) 832-2346
ccline@westminsteru.edu