One Sunday Morning in January

As a rule I tend to not do much with my hobbies on Sunday, for one I am usually too busy with church business, and for another I try to keep Sunday as a day to focus on more spiritual topics. Not that photography cannot enhance my spiritual connection to God, but because I don't like the distraction of being on the computer on that day. Anyway, after a small snow storm Saturday night with a clear morning following, I decided to run out and take a few shots of my local temple with snow on the mountains behind it. On the way I found some other interesting stuff to shoot as well. Unfortunately all I had taken was my tripod and DA 55-300 lens, which lacks really close focus. Despite that I got as close as I could and started shooting.

First: some dead sunflowers, sounds like a boring subject no? Not so! Beauty can be found in death, especially when there is snow on it!

Second: Dead Thistles.... also with snow... see the theme? I do wish I would have taken my DFA 100mm Macro I could have really gotten crazy with that... of course I would have been late to church tearing me away from something like this would have been hard to do.

Third: My original subject, The Oquirrh Mountain Temple. I had to traipse past the above beauties to get to the spot I wanted, but didn't really get the shot I wanted. Retreating through the snow to my car I went a little further north and decided I liked this view. Not entirely sure that sepia is my favorite treatment but it is in and maybe it will sell well.?...?

Lastly on my way home I noticed these clouds on top of Mount Timpanogos, and hurredly drove to the nearest clear vantage point and shot several images that I stitched into this one. I like it a bunch. And I LOVE the views of the mountains where I live!