Infrared at the South Coast Botanic Garden

 I went to the South Coast Botanic Garden on July 10th, 2021, and all I have to show for it is this lousy T-shirt! No, that is not the case. I went and I took photos, that was my intention. What was different was that I went in the afternoon, not during the morning or early mid-day, as I have done in the past. 

I arrived at about 3 p.m., and for a Saturday, it was not that crowded. The oppressive heat may have had something to do with that, of course. It was oppressive, and this time, to make it worse, I took my Nikon D750, because I was determined to get my first batch of digital photos so that I could start my photos book. I have been to this garden now four times, and each time, I took cellphone photos as well as analogue film photos, but of course, the cellphone photos will be of sufficient quality. They are too low-resolution.

I've been avoiding using my digital SLR and it is for a reason. I hate the memories of using it at dance events and snapping away 1,000 photos in one hour. I got so tired of that, and for years, I have been searching for a rationale to break away and stop that activity, but I couldn't do it. Taking all those photos was not even fun anymore, but I was trying to resist inertia.

Well, the pandemic gave me the rationale, because those dance events were forcible cancelled. I was at a loss in the beginning, but then, I rediscovered the glory of film photography. Well, I had actually moved in that direction in 2019 when I bought my Travelwide 4x5 camera and moved up to large format, but now I really dedicated myself to film photography. Now, no more hours and hours of holding down the shutter release button and taking thousands of forgettable photos, now I could just concentrate and "smell the roses". And wouldn't you know, that is where I went, to public gardens

I decided it would be a good project to prepare photo books of my excursions to the gardens, but film being film, it requires a ton of editing. The photos are just not good enough. So, why do I then insist that film photography gives me so much more pleasure? Well, because you do get good photos, and when you do, you appreciate them so much more. Plus, the pace and the approach to film photography, I feel as if I am really enjoying the moment, not working in a factory the way I do with digital. But I took the digital camera to get good enough photos for my South Coast Botanic Garden book.

It was a chore to get those digital photos. I did not feel happy taking them, but luckily, I did take my Fuji GW690ii camera and shoot 6x9 film photos. I took two rolls of infrared film, the JCH Streetpan 400. It is not properly infrared film because it barely dips into the infrared spectrum, but for my purposes, it was good enough. 

The settings were: f13 at 1/30th of a second. Any slower with the shutter speed and my images were guaranteed to be blurry because of photographer shake. Any higher with the aperture and the negatives would be way too thin. So, this was a compromise. I also developed for 12 minutes, which is the equivalent of pushing for one stop.

There were tons of spots and artefacts on the negatives, and I had to spend a long time trying to clean them up, but in general, I loved these infrared photos. Next up, I need to buy some Rollei film. I need to have a good supply of infrared film, and the Rollei dips deeper into the infrared spectrum, plus it is less expensive than the JCH Streetpan. The only thing, though, is that there is never enough supply being sold. The Streetpan is always available, the Rollei is an occasional guest,and when it is available, I have to snap up 10-15 rolls, but it is a great performer.

Here are four infrared photos I took this past Saturday. They are from my first roll, which was not particularly successful. Part of it is the choice of subject, a jumble of roses will not give me enough order and enough highlights to allow for a good composition, part of it is the shallow depth of field, it makes some of the photos look blurry, especially the one with the palm trees in the distance, and part of it is that I was not taking my time and I felt a little uncomfortable, not only because of the oppressive heat but also the disapproving stares of an elderly Anglo man and his family who, apparently, did not like to see Hispanics taking photos in the garden. As if it was his garden.