Things not to do

 We've been having a spell of very hot weather in southern California. It is not unusual, at this time in early October it is usually still very hot, although there have been years in which it was a little cooler. I remember that right about this time, we would have several cultural events taking place. One would be the Irvine Global Village Festival, an event which features several stages with dance performances (and a few musical groups) representing the diverse cultures of Irvine. It is a showcase for them in a festival that would attract thousands of people, and I would be walking around very sweaty but happy with my cameras. I will miss not being able to attend this year because of the pandemic. The other event, which I have only attended once in my life, would be the Tustin Tiller Days parade. It was unseasonably hot that time about 12 years ago, just as it is now, and I wondered at the stamina of the parade participants, especially those from marching bands. I would have loved to attend it once again as well, sizzling or not sizzling.

Yesterday I walked around in the morning to get some exercise. I took a circle around the circle city, and took some sheets of IR film as well as Fomapan 100. I made mistakes, and this is an abject lesson in what happens when we are not paying attention.

There is a church close to the center, one where my father went to have his fateful diagnostic exam that led him to have an operation that ultimately killed him. It makes me sad when I see that hospital, because I almost feel as if my dad is still there waiting for me to pick him up and take him home and tell him not to get that operation, just wait for the end at home. 

I took this image months ago, with a Holga Pan 120 camera. It was not one of the images I took on Sunday's walk on October 4th, 2020.

Still, there is a church next to this hospital and I thought I would take an IR image of it. I thought it would really stand out with ultra dark skies and maybe white trees around ti, and had my shot all planned but then I wasn't happy with it. I had taken that shot before on regular black and white film and didn't want to repeat myself, plus, the angle of the trees left little room for them in the shot, and I wanted the trees prominently. The thing is, I had the shutter cocked and the slide out and the focus set for close distance. So what do I do? I made a rookie mistake. I decided to alter my shot at the last minute, and I ran into the middle of the street to try to get the church framed by the two trees on either side, and didn't even remember to reset the focus not to carefully frame my composition. Plus, did I mention I was in the middle of the street? At any moment a stream of cars would be passing by, so I felt I had to hurry. So, to make a long story short, I screwed up royally.

It is out of focus and not framed correctly. It might have made a better photo if I took care of those details. I was worried about the cars which, a few seconds latter, did not disappoint me, they came rushing past. I should have done better and I will attempt it again, but this time, I will slow things down and think, think, think. Nothing comes of hurrying.

This was a thing not to do. 

By the way, here was my other IR shot, when I had walked for another 30 minutes and was on the way back to the car. I saw this bank building which I have seen and wanted to photograph several times before, and I slowly took my time. The thing is, this is not a good composition for IR. If I want to take advantage of the features for this film, I need to find the things that make it pop, in this case, vegetation. If I want dark skies, I can get that with regular black and white film and a red 25A filter. I do not have to waste a sheet of IR film.

But this is what happens when you are adamant about doing something. There is not enough of a coherent idea to make this a good composition either.

Another thing not to do.

A park in Riverside

 Here are a few photos I took of a park in Riverside. It must have been very early this year, I seem to recall this visit took place before the pandemic hit us. They are 4x5 black and white negatives, but so, so thin, they are almost like thick sheets of clear plastic. One can barely make out any image on them. I don't know what happened, they might have been taken with the Arista 400 film that was giving me so many problems. I don't know why they are so thin, but I was able to extract an image with the scanner. These aren't full images, however, my Epson V600 doesn't cover 4x5, so I pick a strip in the center for it to scan. These are big scans, I scanned at 3200 dpi. I'll delete these scans as soon as they load here.

I hate to say it but Fairmont park is not a pretty park. It is for accommodating the working class masses, and that lake is not pretty. People fish there from time to time but I can't image they catch anything, I can't imagine anything living there in that water filled with muck. There are ducks (or some kind of foul fowl) around there and they leave their droppings everywhere. I don't know why I took this photo, there is nothing compelling about it. If you want visually exciting, go to Mt. Rubidoux next door, it offers much better photographic opportunities. I hate to say it but as they say in Spanish, "¡Se tenía que decir y se dijo!". 

Water splashes out of the pipes and into the lake. I thought I could make it look like a minor cascade, but no, it doesn't look wild at all. On the other side there are small islands with big trees on them, but I can't find a pleasing composition at all.

One of my challenges before the year ends is to obtain ten pleasing images of this park. It is a challenge, and I don't see how I can do it, but I'll try. I have to train my eye, and this will develop my abilities to see new things. Right now, all I can see is a rundown park where my family would go when we were kids during the hot summers. I have a few memories, but even then, it was a rough place. My grandmother came here with us once. I also told my dad here that he should stop drinking because alcohol kills brain cells, and he retorted that we all have to die of something. I feel terrible about it now, because I wish I had had a better relationship with my father. 

More Fuji photos from my Sept. 4th trip to the California Botanic Garden

 These are photos I scanned today of my first trip to the California Botanic Garden on Sept. 4th of 2020. I took them with my Fuji GW690 camera that gives me 6x9 negatives. I had picked them on Monday, I recall, but only now was able to scan them. 

This is my favorite tree at the garden, what is deemed an ocotillo tree. I don't know if it is from the deserts of the Americas or from another continent. I have photographed this in black and white, in infrared and in color. I love this tree, it is so different, and you have to go through a special trail to find it. 

The mountains are what attracted me to this scene. If I had a higher vantage point, I could really make the mountains stand out.

This building has these grape vines all around it, and it is located next to the small, very humble rose garden. Well, the roses were gone by then, and the grapes were very soggy, but I still love this building. It seems almost abandoned. 

I love this vantage point. When I saw it I knew I wanted to return to photograph it in infrared. I will at some point. It seems overgrown, and that is pretty much what this garden is like, it is not as carefully manicured as the other gardens I have seen.

My favorite photo, I caught the light.

This rock has a stream of water oozing down it that attracts many humming birds. I caught the humming birds, but they would not leave this rock alone. 

I will return to this garden, fear not! But hopefully when it is cooler, because right now, it is just too uncomfortable in this very hot spell of weather. We hit 100 degrees Fahrenheit today (Oct. 3, 2020) again, and will have similar temperatures for the next few days until the end of the week when we are supposed to dip down to something more normal, the low 80s. The Northeast is already experiencing chill but we are nowhere near that nor will we be until December. We have two more hot months that await us, but this time, no seasonal events. Trick or trick will probably be cancelled, at least we will not be giving candies, and there are no Dia de los Muertos events. There will be a dearth of anything until we have a vaccine and the death toll stops. We are above 210,000 deaths in the United States alone, and still there are people who support Trump! I will never understand that. 

Twenty years ago in the Bay Area

 I've been digging through a mountain load of old negatives. I can't scan them all, it would take a year or more, but I've been scanning a roll here and there. These are black and white negatives I found from a roll that must have been from the year 2000. Yes, that is twenty years ago when I was still living in northern California. I was completing my program back then, and photography, then as now, was a respite and relief from the stress of work, of life, etc.

These negatives must have been taking with a Holga. I recall that I printed a few of them in the darkroom on campus, and that they were from that camera. I shot in 645 format, and it was, once again, a matter of having very little control of exposure. It was f8 and 1/100th of a second, and I had to choose bright scenes because otherwise, I could do nothing in shadow.

I remember showing these to a friend. I was also using a Lomo camera, so that is why the doubt lingers as to the camera I was using. I think it was a Holga. They were developed at a photo shop in Berkeley called the Looking Glass. It was a great place to buy supplies, and one could also rent time there in their darkroom, but they had a manager or employee (I think he was a manager) who had a big handlebar mustouche and was very grating and bossy. I didn't like going there because of him, so I mostly bought my supplies and paid shipping fees through Freestyle in Los Angeles, CA.

I think this was the Legionaires' Palace. It is close to the Golden Gate bridge, which connects San Francisco to the Marin Headlands, not the Bay bridge which connects the cities of San Francisco and Oakland. I thought I could take a good photo of the architecture.

A statue at the Legionaires' Palace. Nothing much else to say, a figure study of a male figure assuming a pose. The tourists love it.

My campus! That is the Campanile. I think I need to flip this photo horizontally, but will leave it as is. I could have darkened the sky with a red filter, I know. There were spots where one could take beautiful photos of the campus, but my professional training here was not a happy experience so that translated to a feeling of distance from the campus and its environment. I should have gone anywhere but here.

That is it, I'll upload more scans in a little bit. This was, as they say, a "blast from the past", when we had or were about to have another very problematic presidential election, the one which will go down for "hanging chads" as the two sides fought to count Florida votes to win that 2000 election. The Republican presidency of George Bush (fil) was another disaster, but nothing feels as ominous as what we are facing now in 2020, with a shameless and lying president who manipulates a willing public that adores him with a fanaticism that is alarming. Trump's calling out the white militia group "The Proud Boys" is especially outrageous. The timing of his Covid sickness is also very convenient for him. Such a scoundrel, no one was supposed to be worse than Nixon, but this one is off the charts. 

Two IR photos from the San Diego Botanic Garden

 I'm a little less flustered than I was during my earlier posting. I had arrived at about 4:45 p.m. and I was exhausted from my drive. I made good time for rush hour, I realize that, but I had been walking in the garden in the mid-day heat for three hours, and I was tired. After taking a nap, I had a miniscule dinner than sat down at the computer once again. I actually unloaded my film holders, reloaded what I had to reload, and put six sheet in my 4x5 20th Century Camera film reel. I always try to develop my negatives while watching Matt Marrash or Steve O'Nions or Ben Horne photography videos on Youtube.

I let the negative sheets dry for a few hours then scanned a few. Here are two IR images from today's trip. They were taken, once again, with Rollei Infrared 400 film in 4x5 size, at f16 aperture and 1/30th shutter speed. What would you know, the new Steve O'Nions video is about a trip he took up a mountain (like Moses?) with a film camera using the same film I was using, Rollei Infrared. (He also took a converted digital IR camera.) But, these are my frames taken on Friday, Oct. 2nd. We are about one month away from Trump's expected coup attempt.

This is a grassy area up the hill when one traverses the tropical garden habitat. I love the gazebo, and the surrounding vegetations really frames it. The branches and trees to the right which are in the shade are no help for this composition. I should have reframed this. I do love the gazebo shot, though, and there were some amazingly colorful flowers around it. I took a few photos with my cellphone. 

At first, I thought I had not used my R72 filter, but if I had not, using the settings I had taken for 400 speed film, the negative would have been very, very dense. Can you imagine? Using f16 which, in this blazing sun, calls for a shutter speed of 1/400 with no filter, and for me to use 1/30th would have been three stops of overexposure, but my negative density is fine. So I was using the R72 filter, but it so happens that this vegetation does not really reflect IR, except for one or two trees one can see. This was taken from the small wooden lookout tower. I love this composition. Shooting slow on 4x5 film is forcing me to concentrate on compositions. 

So, that was it, I have a few more negatives to dry and scan. I have my Pixl-latr device too, which means I can hopefully get better scans than I am obtaining with my Epson V600 which is introducing many artifacts, such as horizontal lines on the scanned images. But tomorrow is Saturday, and I do not want to spend it scanning nor developing film. I want to go out and do something, but I can't until I accept scheduled delivery of an item from a hardware store. It will be blazing hot so I will not assemble it, but afterwards, I will try to see if I can take a few images somewhere else. The Angeles National Forest is out of the question, the closures have been extended through October 8th. I will also not go to Big Bear, massive droves of Angelinos will be headed there because of the heat. I won't go in the other direction either, Covid or no Covid, the beaches will be full. I will have to just find a place here somewhere in Riverside. Maybe I will take my family members to a small citrus park nearby. It charges an entrance fee, so there are not many people there. We could have a picnic. I hope. 

As mentioned in the previous entry, I did not get a chance to visit the Alta Vista Botanic Garden with the quirky fantastic statues in Vista, CA. It was too late and by the time I arrive, at 3:30 p.m., I would be facing having only 30 minutes to explore before it closed. It will be for another trip. I do want to go back to the San Diego Botanic Garden, but hopefully, when we have cloudy weather. I missed many photo opportunities because of the harsh contrasts, and I didn't even attempt the photos, knowing they would be disasters if I did. But with the right light, hopefully a bright but cloudy day, I can get those images. 

I might go to my campus tomorrow and take some IR images. I also have a set of exams to correct, but on a Saturday, that would be sacrilege. There will be something to do. 

Visit to Encinitas

 The San Diego Botanical Garden was on my list of places to visit. I took advantage today to do so, since I had no classes to teach (via Zoom).

I got up early and purchased my ticket online ($18). It was supposed to be a very hot day again, up to 104 degrees Fahrenheit where I live, but on the coast, maybe fifteen degrees cooler. Encinitas is located near the California coast, so that would be a side benefit of visiting the place, cooler temperatures. Plus, I need to see the ocean from time to time, and I did as I drove down on the 5 freeway but I had no time to stop off at any beach.

It took a little longer than I expected to reach the place. It ended up taking me the full hour and a half, and I arrived at my projected time of 11 a.m. The garden staff are enormously friendly there! Of course they would be, I know they are open-minded and caring people, because, of course, they love plants and they are, most likely, volunteers. They were respectful and I appreciated that. It helps me to get over the fact that as one drive around in other parts one sees Trump volunteers manning tables next to shopping malls down in San Diego county. 

I arrived and didn't know what to expect. I had seen photos, of course, but as they say, you have to walk the walk to talk the talk. It was already in the upper 80s when I arrive at 11 a.m., but I was looking forward to it. I walked and saw a beautiful garden with many distinct habitats, including a beautiful little waterfall in the tropical habitat. There were not that many people so I enjoyed my walk, and the people I did see overwhelmingly wore respected the rules to wear masks. This is what I was talking about, the people who visit public gardens are open-hearted and cosmopolitan people who care about public health, not just vicious Trump narcissists who want to game the system to their benefit. But enough of politics. Trump has Covid, so just like Bolsonaro of Brazil, another Covid denier, he will hopefully find out the truth. 

Love the open pathways. There are many benches everywhere, just like at the California Botanical Garden in Claremont! And this garden is much greener and very colorful. The garden in Claremont was pretty much a monochrome experience except for a few exceptions with sunflowers and some reddish desert plants, but I love that one nonetheless too. 

There is a beautiful waterfall with several tiers. Of course it is artificial and not natural, but I love it nonetheless for its lushness. To take better pictures, I will have to go on a cloudy day, but fear not, I am returning.

These are topiary figures, as I found out when chatting with another visitor. I referred to them as Chia-figures, referencing the Chia pet products on television, which of course made me sound rather common, but now I know that this is topiary. 

Lovely flowers in the building next to the entranceway.

When the shrubs and trees change colors, this will be so beautiful.

More of the water features. This was near a bamboo forest, and they even have a model Asian temple there. These lilies were enormously relaxing to view, but the sun was merciless. Yes, there are turtles in this pond.

Enticing pathways as we climb up.

The beautiful shapes and colors of these flowers! I want to photograph them in cloudy light, not in direct, harsh sunlight. 

On the way up, nearby one can hear the waterfall. Paths are marked in pink for one direction and blue for the other.

Looking forward to autumn colors at this beautiful garden!

I left at about 2:10 p.m. after over three hours. That is the longest I have been in a single garden during a visit. I went and had Chinese-American food, then drove home on the 5 freeway. The traffic looked terrible on the way south, but was actually open and traveling freely on the way north. I took the pay highway, 133, to 241. I wonder what that will cost? But it was worth it, the 91 east is a grind after about 2 p.m., and it was almost 4 p.m. when I was getting near that freeway. 

I didn't get to visit the Alta Vista garden in Vista, but that will be for another day. I was very tired. When I went to get food at the Chinese-American place, in a shopping mall, I was a little off put by a woman who parked next to my car, near some bushes and a tree that were shading my car, and proceeded to urinate in the bushes and change her clothes. She was in her own car, and had the look of a homeless person. Things are difficult. I know they are. The economy is suffering, we are in a pandemic, and housing prices are still through the roof in California. It is impossible to find affordable housing in my state, especially in suburban communities such as Vista, and I read about how the homeless community is trampling all the vegetation near a river outlet in that city. 

I'll be back to this garden, and I will try to visit the Alta Vista garden that I was unable to visit today. I am checking off my list of botanic gardens, and at some point this month, will try for the two gardens in Santa Barbara county as well as the garden at my alma mater in Berkeley. It would be a great time to plan on a trip in the middle of October up the coast. I would leave on a Monday and return on a Tuesday. I would try to visit the Santa Barbara gardens, also take in the missions, then if Hearst Castle is open, I want to go, then continue north, go to Carmel, maybe rent a motel in Watsonville where they won't charge an arm and a leg, then go to San Francisco and then to Berkeley on the next day before driving back. I want to try it. 

A long, long time ago...

 ...I used to participate in photo clubs where we would take photos of amateur models. They were always amateurs, people who just wanted to have photographers give them photos, and we (or I) were bumbling photographers trying to learn the craft or just pass a lazy weekend doing something that did not involve watching football or other sports on television. I never did like doing that. 

I went to this park and photographed this model all those years ago. Earlier today I unearthed a box of negatives, all from about 20 or 30 years ago, and found this batch in a sleeve. The negatives were black and white, and they were very, very thin. There was hardly any image visible on them, and I can only surmise that either they were massively underexposed or else, what is more probably, that they were not fixed properly so the negatives faded.

I don't recall if I developed the negatives. The fact that they were in sleeves and not in a store envelope tends to lead me to believe that I developed and fixed them, and that the fix must have been exhausted. 

While scanning, the Epson V600 had way too much difficulty finding an image. I had to outline the area for it to scan, and I had tremendous difficulty finding it myself. Also, I had to set the brightness level high so it could actually obtain a usable scan. There is only a faint trace of an image on the negatives.

I know, I know, I have heard people on the web say that Digital Ice does not work on black and white negatives, they need to be color. However, I tried. Here are my two scans, the first without Digital Ice, the other, with that software aide.

While it did seem to help, I know that I do not like the weird pixellation effects with Digital Ice. I prefer the first version without it. By the way, I had to increase the exposure for both these scans in my limited pictorial software program, they were much too dark. 

I hope that I gave her copies of the photos. She was very photogenic. Sometimes I didn't give the models images because I didn't think I had taken successful photos. Those were the days. Now, of course, with the coming attempt at a fascist coup by the scheming orange individual in the White House, and the feeling that this country is falling apart, I need to find something to distract me and make me believe there is hope. I am looking for peace.