Rangefinder Magazine
August 2002

Moon Over Zabriskie Point by Lynn Radeka

Moon Over ZabriskiePoint, 1980 (before): This is a straight printmade from the originalnegative on grade 2.5Forte Polygrade paper developed in Dektol. The basic contrast within the lighter foreground mud hills is good, but the entire sky area is far too light and washed out. Also, the foreground dark mud hills lack richness due to weak shadows. Resorting to a higher contrast of paper helped the shadows but destroyed the delicate values in the lighter mud hills.

Since my first visit to Death Valley back in 1966 I have returned again and again, visually lured by the graceful and unusual forms accentuated by early morning and late afternoon light. Early one morning in 1980 I set up my 4x5 camera at Zabriskie Point and waited for sunrise. The moon was positioned among softly flowing cloud masses in the sky above Manly Beacon. As the sun began to rise behind me, the Panamint mountain range (in the background of this image) became bathed in subdued sunlight. My intention was to wait for the sunlight to illuminate the foreground mud hills, but I noticed that the clouds were rapidly moving towards the moon, threatening to cover it completely. Recognizing an interesting image I quickly exposed one negative on 4x5 Tri-X film. Within seconds the clouds obscured the moon, and minutes later the sunlight became diffused by increasing clouds near the eastern horizon. The whole scene appeared very flat and somewhat drab, never taking on the intense quality that I was waiting for. I didn’t shoot a second negative.

Fortunately, my exposure and development were good and the resulting negative of this image shows all the information from shadows through highlights. Even the moon shows detail. I attempted to make what I thought would be an excellent print. After hours of work on this image through at least two printing sessions, the results failed to satisfy me and I eventually considered the image a complete flop. I filed the negative and nearly forgot about it for a decade.

In the early 1990’s I was asked to do a black-and-white poster for Death Valley National Park. My assistant at that time reminded me of the negative I shot nearly 10 years earlier with the moon above Zabriskie Point. After locating the negative and inspecting it, I immediately became aware of a different interpretation than I had 10 years before. Because of my additional experience in printing, and a fresh and objective approach to the image, I believed I could achieve a far superior print than I did when I first printed the image in 1980.

To achieve a delicate rendition of foreground values I used a paper grade of about 2.5 (halfway in between grade 2 and grade 3, depending on the particular paper brand). During the basic exposure, I dodged the light mud hills in the foreground for about 20% of the exposure time. I also burned the sky and background mountain range substantially in order to achieve the mood that I wanted to convey for this image. This burning was done with a slightly softer paper grade filter (about grade 2) in order to achieve the right balance of sky and cloud densities without losing subtle detail in the moon. Some additional edge burning was also done to help confine and balance the image. The resulting print showed a good balance of tonal relationships, but it still lacked the aesthetic feeling of an intense and perhaps mysterious sunrise. In addition, the foreground values in the darker mud hills looked just a bit flat.

The most obvious option to correct for these problems would normally be to use a higher contrast paper grade. Doing this, however, would affect all the values of the print and exaggerate the delicate middle and light values in the sky and the lighter mud hills. To achieve a degree of brilliance in the sunlit mountain range, an extreme increase of paper grade would be necessary, making it even more difficult to maintain delicate value relationships overall. My solution was to apply local highlight “bleaching” to brighten the sunlit mountain range and use a Shadow Contrast Increase Mask to enhance the deep blacks of the foreground mud hills.

The use of a Shadow Contrast Increase Mask (SCIM) allowed me to effectively deepen the fine black accent shadows throughout the lower portion of the image. This results in a very tactile quality in dark shadow values and brings life to these areas without affecting midtone and highlight values at all. The lighter mud hills in the central foreground are largely unaffected by the SCIM mask exposure and the values remain soft and luminous. [Editor’s note: For a detailed description of the SCIM and other forms of masking, see the article “Black and White Masking” by Lynn in the April, 2002 issue of Rangefinder.]

Moon Over Zabriskie Point, 1980 (final): This the final print from the same negative on the same grade of paper as the “before” image. I burned the sky and background mountains substantially and dodged the lighter mud hills in the lower half of the image. The shadows were still weak so I used SCIM (shadow contrast increase mask) to bring life into the shadows. The background mountain range was far too gray and subdued so I hand bleached them with a strong solution of Highlight Brightener bleach.

The final step was to locally “brighten” the background mountain range by hand. On the wet print I carefully applied a fairly strong dilution of my highlight brightener formula (actually a reducer) eventually brightening the entire mountain range. This formula is designed to achieve an extreme increase of highlight contrast, much more so than using dilute Potassium Ferricyanide alone as a localized bleach. The entire brightening process takes me about 20 to 30 minutes per print but the end result is well worth it.

The resulting print preserves the delicate balance of local values while at the same time provides a rich contrast between the major elements of the image. I have hopefully succeeded in maximizing the foreground hills as a metaphor for a lunar-like landscape. This image is now a duotone poster for Death Valley National Park and is also one of my more popular original prints.

Applying the printing experience that I gained between 1980 and 1990 I was finally able to achieve a print that fulfilled my post-visualization. Using some of the printing techniques that I have learned over the past years, coupled with the inevitable change in the way I visualize the final print, it’s a joy to revisit the occasional “forgotten” negative with a fresh and exciting approach.Lynn Radeka has been photographing the American West since 1969.

He has photographed five full color books including Ghost Towns of the Old West and is the author of the Darkroom Masking Kit. He also supervised the printing of the photographs for the book Master Of Light: Ansel Adams and His Influences. Posters of his work can be found in several National Parks throughout the American West. For information on the Darkroom Masking Kit, original prints and posters please visit www.radekaphotography.com and www.maskingkits.com.