HUBBARD Fungus photos will grow on you

A local man has won several awards for his pictures of mushrooms.
By REBECCA SLOAN
VINDICATOR CORRESPONDENT
HUBBARD -- When most folks spy a mushroom growing in their back yard, they see, well, a mushroom.
But not avid gardener and amateur photographer Rodney Toth of Hubbard.
Through Toth's eyes, even a lowly fungus has the potential to become a work of art.
Toth's photograph of a mushroom recently claimed top prize at the Men's Garden Club of America's 2003 Photography Contest.
The national contest took place in Albany, N.Y., during June and featured photographs of flora and fauna submitted by thousands of contestants from across the country.
This isn't the first time Toth's work has been recognized at the competition.
In 2000, Toth won best of show, in 2001 he won first and second runner-up and in 2002 he received two best of section awards for a photograph of a vegetable, and a photograph of a mushroom.
Toth admits to a knack for finding beauty in the mundane.
He also says he sometimes sees winning photographs in unlikely places.
"It's kind of funny, but I was driving home one evening, and I saw this unusual mushroom growing in someone's yard. I thought it would make an interesting photograph so I went home and grabbed my camera and came back and took some shots," Toth said.
The result was Toth's winning photograph for 2003.
Camera work
Toth uses a Pentax camera with a macro lens that allows him to produce dreamy, magnified images of flora and fauna. The result is strange and captivating.
"When you use a magnifying lens and photograph a flower, or vegetable or even a fungus, the result is very artistic and beautiful," Toth said.
A retired Mineral Ridge music teacher, Toth has never had any formal training in photography and said he caught the shutterbug via his great love of gardening.
"I have been a member of the Men's Garden Club of America since 1994, and I love to garden. I frequently enter my flowers and other plants in different gardening contests. One day I started taking photographs of my plants and that's when I realized it would be great to combine my hobbies of gardening and photography," Toth said.
Dahlias are Toth's favorite flowers, and he has also won a photography award from the Dahlia Society of America.
Toth's photographs have also been on display at the Weller Gallery at Mill Creek Metroparks, and one of Toth's most recent photographs will be included in the 2004 national calendar for the Men's Garden Club of America.
And, you guessed it, the photo to be featured in the upcoming calendar is another picture of a mushroom.
"It will be the photograph for the month of July. It's a picture of a chicken of the woods fungus‚ with a star-spangled fritillary butterfly sitting on it," Toth explained.