home     galleries     new     equipment     links     about    contact

Spring dawn, Bishop, California        Images © Mark A. Chappell

I took these photos at dawn in early June, during a small scientific meeting at the White Mountain Research Station just east of Bishop, California.   The sun rising over the White Mountains to the east creates a band of light that moves down from the Sierra crest until the Owens Valley floor is finally illuminated.   To help even out the light intensity for these photographs, I used a graded neutral-density filter to hold back the sky and mountains and allow enough exposure on the desert scrub vegetation in the foreground.

  • Canon 1D Mk. II or 1D IV, 17-40 mm zoom, 70-200 f4 IS zoom, 100-400 zoom, or Tokina 11-16 zoom (2006, 2007, 2010)