A mid week visit to the South Coast Botanical Garden (a treasure!)

Here are a few images from my visit to the South Coast Botanical Garden in Orange County. I went for the first time on Sept. 15th, not expecting much since I understood this was a reclaimed landfill. It was a beauty!

It took me a long time to get here, but it was an uneventful drive. I arrived and started taking photos with my cellphone, saving my 4x5 images for when I was about to leave. One walks in and one sees a beautiful layout. It is a huge, huge garden, with so much variety. It might even be bigger than the Huntington Library that I visited a few days before.

I didn't end up taking very many photos here with my 4x5. I did take two rolls with my Fuji GW690. I know, such a wealth of detail, but I was happy walking around. I did take about 6 frames of slide photos with Fuji Velvia 100. I need to drop those off with all the other slides I have been accumulating. I have high hopes.

It seems to me that I should have taken more photos with the 4x5, but I took plenty of photos in general. It was very pleasant just to walk around, not accumulating images that will never again see the light of day like most photo maniacs do with digital cameras. I have dozens and dozens taken with my cellphone, but it isn't about accumulating the most, only about evaluating the compositions and being selective in which ones I want to capture. It is like those who hunt butterflies, I don't have to constantly swing my need everywhere, just be on the lookout for the most beautiful sample, capture it, admire it, then let it go.

The flower garden is a stunner. I will have to take my mom to this garden. She would really enjoy it.

This will be a paradise for infrared photography. I took one roll of Rollei Infrared 400 film in 120 size, and used it all. I will have to find a time to develop it. I ordered two boxes of this film in 4x5 size, so I can't wait to see how my 120 roll turns out to begin experimenting with the bigger size.

There were people here, yes there were. This was the free entry day, and I was surprised I was able to score admission tickets the night before. Usually free admission day tickets are released weeks in advance, and it was my understanding that they are claimed almost immediately at the bigger venues. Does this beautiful garden not count as a premier venue? It doesn't have the beautiful Greco-Roman (or Renaissance) sculptures that the Huntington Library has, but is has plenty. I explored a small portion of this botanical garden. It was two and a half hours, and I was exhausted and wanted to lie down at the end, but I had to return before 2 p.m. in order to hold my online Zoom class, so I was rushed.

A disconcerting thing is that the negatives all have a violet smudge that runs along the middle part. It doesn't really show up in the scans, and I am relieved at that, but it does show up when you look at the negatives. I am very concerned, and I am beginning to suspect it is the film. I also developed another negative taken with a prior batch of Arista film (the one of the hill), and it doesn't have that smudge/smear. I am beginning to suspect this is a fault of the film, not my technique, not my reel, not my chemicals. I want to try with HP5+ film next time, I have an unopened box and that film has always been very good for me. If I develop it and find no smears on the negative after I develop it, then I think it is the film. The thing is, HP5+ is twice as expensive as the Arista film, but if I am going through the trouble and effort of taking exposures with a 4x5 camera, I can't let cheap film ruin them. This time, they don't seem to have affected the scans, but in others, they did ruin the images. I have a few flower photos taken with my Busch Pressman Model D a few days ago that were ruined. But now that I write this, I am beginning to suspect the reel. I did use a different film a few weeks ago, my expired Kodak Ektapan, and I saw those same smudges. Now I am beginning to suspect, it is my reel, even after I tried to clean it by scrubbing the inside with a toothbrush and soap, there is a violet smudge that show up and must be getting transferred to the negatives. It was a B-s reel too, that had served me so well. 

As always, I love the juxtaposition of desert plants. I think my 4x5 complete image is much better than this partial scan.

I'm not sure what I was thinking about with this composition. I do recall that the squat desert plants in the forefront were quite colorful. That empty sky to the upper left is no help.

This trellis was so beautiful surrounded by yellow flowers. I had to wait for the elderly Asian people in the back to move out of the way. This is another example of "What was I thinking?". It might have worked in color, but not in black and white.

I know, I know, not a good composition. It is far too jumbled. I need to isolate and find quirky juxtapositions, not have everything int he same frame. I could have used the path better. It looks like a disaster in this crop, but the actual 4x5 negative doesn't look so bad. One day I will have a scanner that can scan my negatives completely.

That is it. Tomorrow is Thursday, a busy, busy day for me. I know, only two Zoom classes to teach, but each one takes so much effort that I am drained. Next, I want to go to Descanso Gardens, which is supposed to be another magnificent garden in Los Angeles county. At some point, I will also go to the San Diego botanic garden. Now is the time, my goal is 12 botanic gardens of southern California before the end of this disastrous year of 2020. So far, I have 1) UCR Botanic Garden, 2) California Botanic Garden, 3) Cal State Botanic Garden, 4) Japanese Garden of Balboa Park, 5) Huntington Library of San Marino, 6) the LA Arboretum in Arcadia, CA and 7) South Coast Botanic Garden of Orange County. My work is cut out for me, but it is only five more gardens. I can do it.