January 20 dawned with clear skies in St. Louis, so I packed up some cameras and drove into the City. It had been nearly a year since I had last visited the Missouri Botanical Garden.

Once inside the Garden, it felt colder than appearances, and I was thankful for my coat, hat, and gloves. This being only 4 weeks since the Solstice, even at Noon the sun was still riding low in the sky, not far above the horizon.

I discovered a sensation, when I put aside the view through camera lenses and allowed myself to actually see with my own eyes. And I was struck with a sense of great beauty about me. Yes, this can be a very beautiful place.

This image set is from an Argus A2B, a postwar (late 1940's) "A" type body fitted with a lens from Wollensak.Serial number is A2B185557. Film was Fuji 200, which I rated @ ASA 50. I have learned that overexposing by 2 stops works better when developing Fujicolor with my Caffenol process.

I ended up with 23 good images. Of course it is an old Argus, so I wasted one frame, while thinking, "Did I advance the film that time, or not?" There were some snafus. The film would not feed correctly onto the spool in the dark, and I had to pull it back out and start over. Then, while cutting the end of the film from the canister in the dark, I cut a big hole in the inner layer of
changing bag. Fortunately, it is double layer. Finally, while hanging the filmstrip to dry in the closet while the emulsion was still wet, the entire roll fell out of the clip and to the floor between some items of equipment. As a result, there are scratches, but not "fatal."

Please click on thumbnails to see enlarged.
All images are ©2021 E.J.Kowalski.
Thanks! Ed