Well, it is Saturday morning and the prediction came true. Yes, Biden won, it was just confirmed a few hours ago, but I was talking about the rain forecast for today. It was raining early and, at times, very strongly today. It has stopped now and we have scattered clouds, but it is supposed to rain off and on during the rest of the day. And what to do? No outings are possible, so I took to scanning more photos from the past.
This is a roll from, I think, 2001. It came also with photos from the Lompoc Valley Flower Festival parade and there is a banner in one of my photos that lists that year. But most of the photos are of this garden, which to me, seems very compelling. It is located next to the San Fernando Mission, and given that I went to that location just a few weeks ago hoping to take garden photos but was denied because the place was closed, I was a little upset that the docents didn't tell me about this nearby garden. (But I didn't mention that I was looking to take garden photos.) It is the Brand Memorial Garden, not to be confused with Brand Park in Glendale. This is totally separate, and is next to the San Fernando Mission. I didn't see it, but I had preserved the memory from long ago that this garden was what I thought I would see at the mission. It is supposedly still open.
I love that I was trying to take different types of photos, not just of people at festivals. I wish I had kept this up, taking also photos of other landmarks and, also, of landscapes. Imagine where I would be now if I had picked up a large format camera and started using sheet film. I did pick up a 4x5 Santa Barbara lensless camera but I never used it, and one of my purchase was also a rickety 5x7 camera but, once again, I didn't use it. So many film options back then, I think I could even have been able to shoot slide film in 5x7. And, finally, back then, I had bought a curious camera, an 8x10 box camera (no bellows, a box) with a Metrogon lens attached, no shutter but it did have aperture settings. I kept it with me for a year when I was serving my second sentence (that is what I call it, a sentence, but it was a period of employment) at Kansas back in 2003-2004. I never once loaded it with film, but I did donate it to the art center downtown. Now I wish I still had that camera, but it was gigantic and very unwieldy.
These photos are of that garden, and it seems like a very majestic place. If it coincided with the Lompoc festival, then it was summer and the roses were in full bloom. I remember I liked this place very much when I visited it, and all I seemed to preserve were the memory of columns and of orange trees. It is great to know it is still open, according to the search I performed on the internet a few hours ago. I will have to return in the next few days, when we have sun. Also, as long as I am there, I will go to Brand Park in nearby Glendale to photograph the Japanese garden located there. For the longest time they used to have a monthly modeling shoot there, and I went many times.
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