After six months of never venturing off my property, I've learned to live with the lockdown. Now if California can just get through these last two months of our annual fire season without any mandatory evacuations, which are incompatible with the Coronavirus distancing guidelines, we can look forward to some much-needed rain in November.

This is the month we traditionally focus on Palatine's offerings for next season. I've created a thread with a link to the updated site.

The thumbnail rose for this month is Hope for Humanity, a hardy Canadian shrub rose grown to perfection by our forum's Joannabanana.

You have chosen an appropriate representative rose for the times. May we thrive like Joannabanana's lovely rose.

The garden has made the lockdown and social distancing during summer bearable for me. I've a never-ending list of things to do in terms of expanding the garden's design, paths and layout; moving plants to more optimal locations; introducing new roses and perennials; potting up volunteer seedlings and sharing plants with socially distanced neighbors, etc. We've had such a dry summer in New York that it has meant I've been able to spend almost every weekend working in the garden.

When the cold weather comes, I'll have to face a long winter of socially-distanced indoor activity. Thank goodness for my photographic darkroom. I still shoot 4x5, 5x7, and 8x10 black & white film on large wooden view cameras, develop the negatives in my 8-foot sink, and produce prints on my enlarger. I've been invited to do a show next year in a local public gallery, so I'll have my work cut out for me come this winter.

Yes, Mike, since my retirement a few years ago, things sort of stopped when the garden was a no-go zone in the winter. However, I picked up watercolor painting and
now, I spend the summer growing the subjects of my winter's painting. None of the local galleries are clamoring for my work yet, but my wife and kids like it.

September 1st is the start of meteorological autumn here. The daylight hours are noticeably shorter. Yesterday was the last day the sun set after 8:00 pm. Today it sets at 7:59 pm. Sigh... I hope to get one more small flush of blooms before first frost though.

Mike and David, we would love to see some of your work!

Mike, your darkroom sounds like a great place to spend a winter in if there are still self-isolation rules then. I spent most of my childhood in my father's huge photographic studio and we even lived there for a year or so between buying and selling houses. I used to have my bath in the huge stainless steel sink in the darkroom. I recently started using vinegar in my washing machine and when I opened the door afterwards the smell knocked me back 50 years to that darkroom where Dad used vinegar as a stop bath.

Lola, I know exactly what you're talking about. In addition to my own photography, I volunteer as an photographic archivist at a local museum, which has a collection of over 10,000 negatives from the 1930s through the 1970s. Every time I open an archival drawer of negative holders, the smell of acetic acid (the basis of vinegar) comes wafting out of the envelopes, even though they negatives are 50 - 90 years old!

I do black & white photography in film as well as digital format. Here are some images...

Asiatic Lily


Zebra Mallow


Zinnia


Watering Can Nozzle


Faucet Handles


200 Year Old Door Knocker


Costa Rican Village


1944 Buick


Much of the film work I do is with large view cameras with 4x5 negatives using short but giant lenses with large, mechanical shutters (some of which are over 100 years old). However the last picture was taken with a pinhole camera that has no lens. The only opening is literally a pinhole where a lens would be, and there is no view finder. The camera was mounted on a tripod, aimed in the direction of the truck, and loaded with a single 4x5 sheet of positive paper (as opposed to negative film) which was exposed for 15 minutes. Obviously, the pinhole doesn't let in much light, which is why it takes so long to expose the photograph. The tiny aperture also creates an interesting, subtle distortion of the visual field that enlarges the foreground.

Those are great, Mike. I took a photography course in college and went no further when I saw what some of my classmates came up with for final projects.





This is a study of a 1635 tulip painting from the MoMA collection.
I'm not very good painting roses yet. They're hard! That's going
to be my goal this winter.

Mike, your images are wonderful! My father was a B&W photographer of some note back in the day. He won quite a few prestigious awards and many world-wide competitions. He was an old fashioned photographic artist who used silver nitrate and other older techniques, plus a variety of cameras to achieve the result be was searching for. We would have regular bonfires to burn negatives so the one or two prints he produced were all there would ever be, and to burn all the prints that didn't meet his exacting standards. When we had to sell the old farmhouse I made sure to rescue some of the trays from the darkroom to remind me of Dad.

David, I wish I could paint as well as you do. I think you captured the tulip very well, and I should know since I was looking at tulips last night on Brent & Becky's website.

Lola, I bet you have some really interesting memories and stories about your father's work. I still use silver nitrate, especially when I'm creating tintypes on sheets of metal or glass using collodion as the emulsion.

These are my two favorite view cameras. The larger one is for 8x10 negatives, and the smaller one is for 4x5. When you focus the image on the glass plate in back of the camera under a dark cloth, it is upside down and backwards. But after a while your brain gets used to it.

Amazing guys!

Mike love the black and whites. I used to shoot them in my college days but haven't in a long time. And I love the pinhole one!

David, your tulip is gorgeous! I can't wait to see you conquer the rose!

Here's a rose I worked on last winter...this was my third try, I think.



I was pretty happy with it. However, every time I attempt an open
rose, I get lost in all the petals! Then it becomes an awful mess.
That's my project for this winter.

Oh, it's lovely, David! Try starting with one of the single petaled roses, like Dainty Bess or Sally Holmes and then go from there. A David Austin might be just too much petal, lol!

I agree. I have a lot more luck with clematis!!

Ooh! Can we see those too?

Some verandas from the Big Island:
Brilliant Veranda

Cream Veranda


Lavender Veranda


Sunbeam Varanda


Sunbeam Veranda

What a beautiful collection, Dennis!

How about some more September blooms!

Appleblossom Flower Carpet


This one is NOID. I call it Aunt Gloria because it's from a cutting of my Aunt Gloria's beautiful rose that has stood by her back door for decades!


Brilliant Pink Iceberg


Celestial Night


Champagne Wishes


Golden Wings


Julia Child



Love Song


Oh Happy Day


Watercolors Home Run


Winter Sunset


Zenaitta

My favorite is Aunt Gloria!