One of the great joys of spending my first 31 years in Chicago was the amount of time I was able to spend at the Art Institute of Chicago which has one of the finest collections in the world of art in general and French Impressionist painting in particular. So I grew up with Monet's lily ponds in and on my mind and have amassed an extensive collection of water lily images of my own. The "gold," "blue" and "black" lily pond prints were photographed on the same day in the same pond in front of the conservatory in Balboa Park in San Diego. I usually use a polarizing filter to cut glare and saturate color. It was mid-afternoon on a very clear day, so I added the polarizer to cut out the sky's reflection and make the water go black, giving the images a Tiffany, jewel-like quality.