There are, at times, multiple forces of nature coordinating with each other and taking turns at spoiling your picture.  Morning sunlight could selectively illuminate the foreground — which enhanced the relative darkness of the sky behind — but only when there was a hole in the clouds, and that hole moved quickly as the low clouds were whipped by the wind.  I was near the saddle between American Fork and Provo Canyons, so there was even more swirling wind there than elsewhere I photographed during the day.  I wanted a moment of (relative) calm so that I could use a slower shutter speed in order to get a smaller aperture (for more depth-of-field).  We Dutchmen are known for our stubbornness, so I waited close to an hour to get this shot.  It was a rare intersection — no doubt, a lapse in communication between the forces of nature — that allowed me a relatively wind-still moment with a little sunlight filtering through the clouds.  I ended up with 1/25s at f/16 using the Canon EF 20-35mm f/2.8L set at 20 mm focal length.

 

I made a 252-piece puzzle of this shot for my mom.  She said it was “very challenging”, and I suspect that she spent even more time with this shot than I did (although she was warm and dry during her labor).