...that I know where people while away the hours and collect paychecks.
I went because I wanted to return a book I had checked out in February of last year. Turns out, there is a notice on the return slot that it is out of order, and we were to go to the Student Service Building and return it there to a container, but I didn't find it. So, a trip in vain it was, as Yoda would say.
Photos taken on the cellphone as I was leaving the California Botanic Garden in Claremont, CA. Can you believe we still have fall color at the end of January, as we transition to February? I had never noticed that before.
More cellphone photos from my trip to the California Botanic Garden.
It was supposed to be a partly cloudy day, and I wanted to go out and take photos of the snow-capped mountains, but not if I had to venture up to the Angeles Crest road. There is snow up there, and you are required to have snow chains, and I don't, plus I don't want to take extended trips the day after I passed a miserable night with stomach pain. So, I sat at home and prepared a Powerpoint lecture for my class, finished it and took a look outside. There was sunlight outside, it was 12:30, and I said, carpe diem! So I got ready and drove out to the California Botanic Garden with two cameras, my DSLR and my Fuji GW690. I have not taken my DSLR there yet, out of the maybe 4 or 5 times I have been there, and it was time.
I got there at 1:30 and the parking lot was full. I did find a spot after someone pulled out but I was nervous, since I had to squeeze into a space with a big SUV next to it, and even though the license plate read "UC Davis alumni", and my impression is that that is a very civilized campus with a civilized culture, I thought, I won't risk it. So I waited and found another spot.
Walking in and you could hear the kids. I don't mind, although you have to be careful with them, they tend not to wear masks and they tend not to respect personal space so they will run right up to you or next to you, sending me into a panic as I try to scramble away while lugging big cameras. But I had no trouble today.
The sun was out briefly before it took leave and hid itself. Most of my cellphone photos were dark. The mountains and hills nearby are beautiful with their layer of snow. I didn't get very many clear shots, though, and to do so, I could have used a split density filter.
Here are a few cellphone photos.
This chart summarizes a very sobering reality about the effect of Covid in California. It is beyond comprehension that we have sunk so low, especially in the month of January, and yet, economic pressures are such that they are forcing the governor to reopen dining establishment and relax restrictions.
The slides look beautiful! I don't remember when I took them, it must have been in late November, but I have a few packet of negatives and slides that I have not scanned yet. I used my Fuji GW690ii and, probably, Fuji Provia slide film. It is only a matter of time before Fuji kills off this film too, as they did with Fuji 400H last week.
Okay, okay, so I made a mistake. After visiting the LA Arboretum this past Wednesday and taking infrared photos with my Fuji GW690ii, in combination with JCH Streetpan film, I have to admit, things did not come out as expected. My aperture setting was inadequate for the job. Massive fail. I think I used f11, but might possibly have been foolish enough to use f8, hoping as I did to get adequate negatives that were not too thin. The negatives were fine, they were dense enough, but the depth of field was not, it was way too shallow. So, I am not happy with these images.
Note to self, I will need to be more careful. You learned your lesson. Use f16, but a shutter speed of 1/15th. I will have to push development too to get denser negatives, but I need that depth of field to encompass more of the background. I think I used f8, I am not sure but that is what I think I used. Whatever it was, it was a darkish day (there were clouds and the light levels were low), so of course, I justified it on that basis. I will need to learn from my mistakes.
By the way, today it was forecast to rain all day, but all I notices was some drizzle. It was mostly cloudy, though, but at times the sun came out. The neighborhood was quiet all day. The neighbor by the name of Vargas has been gone for about two weeks, all I see is his truck but no movement in the house, not even his sons driving in, just a silent house, and no signs of habitation in the house of King, and no signs from the Partida house, whose matriarch is in the hospital, it is said, with Covid, and no sign of habitation by the young man who lives in the house facing ours. It looks desolate.
And, according to Worldmeters, we are getting close to hitting 450,000 dead of Covid in this country.
