A near-death experience helps a Carmel Valley photographer learn a new way of seeing.

Photographer Bob Stone''s leather portfolio contains page after page of dramatic shots of celebrity models, from a nude and youthful Cheryl Tiegs with turquoise sandals dangling over her tanned shoulder to Kim Basinger swathed in a sable coat.

Interspersed throughout the celebrity pages are also very different kinds of pictures: smiling little blond sisters hugging, a wrinkled, elderly couple beaming at the camera, and a happy young couple embracing on the beach.

"These photos are life," Stone says enthusiastically. "There''s a different feeling to these pictures. I wouldn''t have been able to take them before."

"Before" is a period spanning 25 years, which Stone spent as a New York City fashion photographer and which ended with a near-death experience in 1999. Since then, everything''s changed.

In the late 1960s, Stone was a staff photographer at an ad agency. When a well-connected buddy swung him a trial assignment for Vogue, fate intervened. As Stone lay on his belly in Riverside Park shooting a model for a shoe layout, a curious beagle walked up and sniffed the model''s leg just as Stone snapped the frame.

"It looked very deliberate," Stone says. "The head of Vogue saw the shots and thought it was fabulous--just the right sense of humor. He gave me a 10-page spread right after that."

Overnight, Stone found his phone ringing off the hook. With a flair for creating interesting shots, he was soon being squired about in limousines and flown all over the world to shoot fashion layouts. He has photographed more than 300 celebrities.

But even though his job involved doing things like hanging out with Cindy Crawford in Bermuda, burnout set in. So when Stone came out to Carmel Valley to take care of an elderly aunt in 1990, he decided to stay and relax.

The inactivity didn''t last long.

"I wanted to reinvent myself," Stone says. "I thought, ''What do I like?'' I realized I wanted to be outside and learn more about animals and plants."

Stone approached Carmel Valley Chevrie, a goat farm in Cachagua, and asked owners Anna and Gilbert Cox if he could care for the farm''s 300 goats and learn to make cheese. To his surprise, they said yes. He soon found himself playing mama goat, caring for weak kids who couldn''t nurse by feeding them out of a beer bottle with a rubber nipple.

After a year at the goat farm, Stone found other jobs at Carmel Valley farms growing heirloom tomatoes and ornamental shrubs. Photography came back into the picture soon after.

One goat-farm customer, Doyle Moses, learned of Stone''s photography and asked him to shoot some weddings at the farm. Someone at a wedding handed Stone the card of a local woman, Pamela Newman, who manages models. Curious, Stone called, and found himself shooting models once again, this time those on the cusp of their careers. He became Newman''s only photographer.

Then one day in July 1999, Stone, always noted for his punctuality, didn''t show up for a shoot.

"I got a phone call from Bob''s sister," Newman says, "saying that Bob was in a coma, and had just had emergency brain surgery to remove an abscess the size of a plum." After a week in the hospital, Stone was still in a coma, showing no improvement.

When he finally regained consciousness, he was in a childlike state, he says, unable to distinguish dreams from reality. He spent the next 10 months in the Monterey Pines nursing home.

"It was like [the movie] Groundhog Day, every day the same--an eternity," Stone recalls. Unexpectedly, he made a complete recovery. But the ultimate homecoming was difficult.

"When released, I came home, and there were still notes up and phone numbers from a year ago that I had no memory of. I thought, ''What am I going to do now?''" he recalls. "There was the anxiety of, ''Can I take pictures still?'' I was trying to figure out what to do when the phone rang, and Mary Chamberlin, a chef and cookbook author, asked me to photograph a charity event at her home in Carmel Valley. She had no idea that I''d been in the hospital."

Although uncertain of his ability to operate a camera, Stone photographed the event, and when he got the pictures back, he discovered that his images had changed.

"I surprised myself," he says. "I''d gotten rid of all the excess stuff, and it was down to the purity of my pictures. I wouldn''t have taken [photos] that way before. I would have been afraid that there wasn''t enough to look at."

After the event, Stone picked up where he left off with Newman. "We put together 25 portfolios in two months," Newman says, "and every one of them was signed with San Francisco model and talent agencies."

Stone continues to flip through his portfolio, pointing out people that he''s photographed, some famous, and others who aren''t necessarily traditionally beautiful but who are striking nonetheless.

"I have a connection with people now," he says. "I''m fearless. The camera has become organic with me. I see the preciousness of life starting to come out in my pictures."

Stone looks off into the distance. "You can get an attitude in New York City, and I had a bit of one," he chuckles. "It was a great experience, but I''m glad I''m here now. It''s like a rebirth. I get to live, so I''m going to be a positive force in this world."

To reach Bob Stone, visit www.carmelfineartphotography.com or call 624-3256.