Marble Canyon Petroglyphs, Death Valley. Black and white photograph. Radeka Photography

A short hike from the end of the jeep road leads to these unusual Indian petroglyphs. I felt the striped wall above the figures lent a sort of "theatrical" setting, like actors on a stage. I shot two negatives on 4x5, one with a green filter, and one with an orange filter. The two negatives yield different densities in the "curtain-like" stripes (which were a bit orange in color). I applied a highlight mask pin-registered with the original negative when printing in order to slightly enhance the brilliance of the stripes and the petroglyphs. A fog mask is used to make a second exposure on the paper, serving to locally "dim down" small competing highlights in the dark marble rock.