Golden, Dawn

When Ansel Adams photographed Moonrise, Hernandez, a great deal was made that he took the shot with one 8x10 sheet and no light meter.

 

The drama of the moment is typical of A.A.'s talent for self-promotion.

 

The night-time exposure of Golden Dawn was relatively simple. I had my light meter ready, having planned the shot. The light at dawn was changing rapidly, so after the reading I had to act fast, taking two shots on 4x5 film, flipping the holder and changing my time exposure. The exposure was about 8 to 12 seconds on Vericolor film . . .

 

Vericolor is 160 ASA compared to A.A.'s Ansco 64. Grain starts to become noticeable in 11x14 prints . . . A.A. with 64 ASA, slow development, and film with 4 times the area had me beat.

 

HOW ANSEL ADAMS PROBABLY SHOT MOONRISE, HERNANDEZ

 

The moon is lit by the sun, just as the earth is on a sunny day. Therefore, he used the 'Sunny 16' rule. The film speed as the shutter speed and f-16.

 

He did have to make some alterations. Using the Zone System; he increased the shutter speed two stops putting the moon in a very bright grey, but not white. Thus, the detail of the moon was preserved.

 

He then added more exposure for a Wratten G filter. This is an orange filter, cutting out UV haze and sharpening clouds . . . standard for landscape work in B&W. For maximum sharpness, he probably chose f-64 on an 8x10 camera.

 

Now let's do the calculation is real time.

Ansco 64 film w/wratten g orange

 

1/50th @ f 16 Sunny 16 Rule

1/50th @ f 64 -2 stops to preserve detail of moon

1/20th @ f 32-64 1 1/2 stops for filter

 

Concerns are recomendations not to shoot the moon longer than 1/15th of a second . . . the moon does move. Also, some advise an additional stop a week out of full moon.

 

I think you'll find this was A.A.'s exposure . . . another rule he may have used was 'Shoot for the Highlights and let the Shadows Go to Hell.'

 

This means that if you overexpose the moon, the detail is lost and other parts will be grainy. If you capture the moon, the landscape illuminated by the moon and setting sun can be manipulated by a slow, diluted film development and dodging under the enlarger.

 

I think the largest print Adams made of Moonrise was 20x24. That enlargement is equal to my 4x5 blown up to 11x14. My standard size is 8x16. On canvas, the prints are 10x20 and 20x40 inches, with no discernable grain and incredible detail.

 

How did I do that?

 

I scanned the Vericolor negs before they became too chemically stained and faded altogether. The last step in C-41 processing is a preservative, Formaldahyde I believe. I think this step and the wash were not done well. Even Adams had to re-fix and intensify his negative. They were also grainy, so I used a digital filter called Neat Image. It is very sophisticated.

 

Because of Neat Image, I can enlarge Golden Dawn to 15 x 7 feet at 150 dpi.

 

Ansel Adams burned in the sky to get it black, and dodged the clouds to keep them in clear perspective.

 

I used Levels in Photoshop to take the sky in the upper left to black. This acted as a grey scale in a color image to adjust the color, as well as the exposure of the sky.

 

There is also serious mixed lighting. The 'blue' night to the 'gold' dawn combine in the middle mixing into a green flash which I was lucky to catch and didn't notice until I applied levels.

 

The foreground had to be adjusted seperately to get the color balance to where the vegetation had variation and the New Mexico clay was not too red or magenta.

 

In the preceding upload, I used an 81A filter in Photoshop to warm the image. This image is without the filtration.

 

I hope you like the image . . . it is in a few galleries and hopefully one of the versions will sell . . . it is a classic New Mexico image.

Done