Sand Dunes Sunrise, Death Valley, California

Previously, on other occasions, he had arrived too late for sunrise, or had problems with windblown sand. The nature of the sand dunes is such that they are constantly windblown and shifting, so a found position can only be used for a short time. On a later visit, weeks or months later, the same view will simply not be there anymore.

The photo was taken with a 4 x 5 camera with a yellow filter, which on this occasion separates the foreground tones rather than darkening the sky appreciably. Very shortly after taking the photos, Adams returned to his car and left the rising temperatures on the dunes. He had also prepared for the occasion by painting his camera bodies with white paint. Traditional camera bodies are matte black, but an experiment conducted at his San Francisco home on a mild sunny afternoon showed that white-painted bodies stayed significantly cooler than their black counterparts.