On mornings when there are no clouds in the eastern sky, this is always a wonderful three to four minutes of time. Three to four minutes is about all the time it takes for the scene to go from "full shadow" to "full sunshine," and capturing this particularly brief instant when the scene is "divided in half" between shadow and sunshine is always a challenge ... trying to get the settings just right so that the top doesn't come out too bright or the bottom doesn't come out too dark.
.....
Less than two minutes earlier, I captured "Annabel" touching down on 16R .... and the entire scene in THAT snap is in full shadow because the sun was still just below the crest of the mountains behind me. Yet, by the time "Annabel" taxied past me here and was being marshaled into its ramp slot, the sun had come completely over the crest and in my next set of pics, clicked only 80 seconds after this series, the entire airport is fully bathed in morning sunshine. On cloudless evenings, the same thing happens in reverse as the sun drops below the crest of the Sierra Nevada.

Yeah, that's cool! Nice job, Gary!

Very nice shot Gary! 5*****s! That is one awesome background too.

Outstanding capture! I saw one very similar to this one at RDU, N385FE.

beautiful ! DC-10

Really nice shot, love the light work.