LENS ARTIST PERSEVERES FOR A SHOT

For photographer Lynn Radeka there are two kinds of images: the kind that come by a bit of serendipity--”The instant recognition of an image,” he calls it--and the kind that require some planning and tenacity.

An example of the more difficult variety is “Sunrise, Angel Arch.” The idea for the photograph, which shows a towering natural stone arch bathed in full morning sunlight while a foreground ridge is still in shadow, was born during a trip to Utah’s Canyonlands National Park in the early 1970s.

Radeka first tried the shot during a return trip to the park in 1975. It was tricky because the sun was in the right position for only 40 seconds. And to get to the best vantage point, he had to drive 20 miles on a jeep trail and hike several miles more. He got the shot. But when he developed the film back home in Anaheim, he discovered a flaw in the negative.

Six times over the next 10 years, Radeka tried to recapture the image, only to be foiled by poor lighting or cloudy skies. When he finally did get the photograph in 1985, though, his tenacity paid off. It has become one of his most popular works and is featured on a poster sold by the National Park Service in Canyonlands.

“Sunrise, Angel Arch” will be one of 64 photographs by Radeka to be exhibited beginning Sunday at the Mills House Gallery in Garden Grove. His black-and-white landscapes, in the tradition of nature photographer Ansel Adams, reflect Radeka’s love of the outdoors and his willingness to go out of his way to capture an image.

“I enjoy making the inaccessible accessible,” the 35-year-old artist said in a recent interview at the city-operated gallery.

Radeka roams the Southwestern deserts, Northwestern forests and seaports in a 1970 Ford Bronco with 190,000 miles and counting. When the road ends, he puts his camera and tripod into a backpack and hits the trail. Radeka, who said he travels eight to 10 weeks each year, confessed that simply being in the wilderness is “just as exciting as the photographic aspect” of his journeys.

His interest in photography began in 1970, Radeka recalled, when his parents gave him a 35-millimeter camera for Christmas. As he scoured books and magazines on the subject, the teen-ager made an important discovery: “I noticed that a lot of the photographs I really connected with had the same name under them--Ansel Adams.”

Radeka was so taken with Adams’ work that he said he contacted the photographer, who agreed to meet him and critique his photographs. “He was very encouraging in the comments that he made about my work,” recalled the artist, who went on to meet with Adams several times before the famed photographer and conservationist died in 1984. Radeka also has been counseled by photographers Wynn Bullock and Henry Gilpin.

It was in 1973 that Radeka decided to turn to photography full time. “I saw photography as a way to satisfy my creative instincts and as a way to see God’s creations from a different perspective,” he said. Since then, he has worked in photographic labs and has taken on free-lance assignments (he is now finishing a slide presentation commissioned by Capitol Reef National Park in Utah). But his first love is black-and-white photography.

“I consider my serious work as black and white,” said Radeka, who is mostly self-taught. “I like the clean, crisp whites and dark, rich blacks of a black-and-white print.” His work has appeared in books and magazines, and he has sold some prints on his own, but he only recently began showing in galleries. His first exhibit was last year in Springdale, Utah (at the entrance to Zion National Park, a favorite locale). In February, he had a one-man show in Costa Mesa’s Rizzoli Gallery.

Most of Radeka’s images are of natural scenes, with a sprinkling of quaint Washington seaports and aging Southwestern mining towns. The subject matter, coupled with his penchant for black-and-white photography, he said, leads some viewers to dismiss him as an Adams imitator. That is a view Radeka is quick to dispute.

“My work is very different from (Adams) from a certain perspective,” he said. Although he admires the late photographer’s art, he feels his own photographs represent a personal vision that sets his work apart, despite the similarity in subject matter.

His goal, Radeka said, is to convey the “feeling of tranquillity” that nature instills in him, and to encourage viewers to see for themselves the sites he photographs. Failing that, he hopes to lead viewers to see the natural world from a more sympathetic perspective, a goal consistent with his work as an active environmentalist.

Radeka said that he is pleased with the increased gallery exposure and added that the Rizzoli show raised considerable interest in his work. The exhibits won’t keep him at home for long, though. He is trying to arrange a trip to Alaska, a longtime dream that eluded him in 1975, when a rock broke his windshield on the Alaska Highway and forced him to turn back 1,000 miles short of his goal.

“I believe Alaska is the greatest expanse of wilderness left in the United States. It’s the desire to extensively photograph and experience that wilderness that enthuses me about this trip,” he said. “I do enjoy getting out in the open spaces.”