Rock Forms, Red Canyon, Utah. Black and white photograph. Radeka Photography

Driving through Utah's San Rafael Swell, my assistant and I came across this alkali-crusted boulder. My original visualization was that of a rather high-key print. In the darkroom, however, I re-explored the potential interpretations of this negative and decided that a much deeper, higher contrast print revealed the interesting "flame-like" structure of the luminous forms. Substantial burning of the dark values on the upper and lower portions of the print further accentuates the central forms. Local "bleaching" is also done in order to balance out some of the brighter rock values. Fortunately, this negative was exposed well and contains all the information necessary for a variety of interpretations.