Armstrong Park, Santa Rosa, JFC, 1982

The negatives in this sleeve were a printing project based on two negatives.

First negative is one of giant redwoods, something Armstrong Redwoods State Natural Reserve in Sonoma County is well known for.

The second negative centers on fungi. These images were photographed on Feb 13, 1982. The original negatives were shot on 120 format roll film, so the negatives and positives shown below are all made in the darkroom.

Few words on the park first:

Located just north of the Russian River in a canyon two miles from Guerneville’s Main Street, Armstrong Redwoods was set aside as a natural park and botanical garden in the 1870s by Colonel James Armstrong, ironically enough, a lumberman. (Lumbermen fell 95% of California’s old redwood groves.)

His daughter carried on his preservationist work after his death, and was instrumental in getting the public involved in saving what remained of the area’s redwood forests. The grove was purchased by the County of Sonoma in 1917, which managed it until the State of California took it over in 1934.

• The oldest tree, Colonel Armstrong, is more than 1,400 years old.
• The tallest tree, Parson Jones, extends upward more than 310 feet (it’s taller than a football field is long).
• The most burl-heavy tree, Icicle, shows an unusually large number of the burl formations that can grow on redwood trees (burls can weigh tons)

The second image with redwoods is a positive B&W transparency Joel included in the sleeve. He took the highlights down and rendered the overall scene darker.

This image needs some more work before being print ready. Both have merit, a combination of the two would be more appropriate.

The second negative shows few fungi with clovers.

Joel left us two positive images of this negative. Not sure if these were printed as they’re both a bit dark to my taste. Joel had plenty to work with the original negatives.

Both images were printed on 11 x 14″ paper according to the information ont he sleeve.

Last image was an intriguing “experiment”. Joel sandwiched two fungi negatives together and made a positive of it.

The above images are out of the Jessica Fong Collection of Dardis negatives.

Cheers !