This little cemetery is just off the side of U.S. 285, where it passes through the town of Villa Grove at the north end of the San Luis Valley.

I've stopped here several times to take pictures, but conditions never were right to get the shot I wanted - this cross and its picket fence; its white points mirror the snow-capped Sangre de Cristos in the background. Too little snow. Too many clouds. Light from the wrong angle.

Finally, on a day in late April, everything came together. After a 20-minute wait, the clouds parted, letting sunlight hit the cross and the mountains.

Making the picture

• Equipment: Leica Digilux 2 digital camera, built-in Vario-Summicron zoom lens set to 7mm focal length (equivalent to a 28mm on 35mm film)

• Technique: I shot from a low angle to frame the cross dramatically against the sky, place the fence and mountains closer together to emphasize their corresponding shapes and hide the asphalt of the highway just beyond the black fence. I used a wide-angle lens to include more of the cross in the picture, and for its great depth-of-field, which kept everything in focus over a range from 2 feet to several miles. Finally, I moved in close, putting my lens in between two of the fence pickets on my side of the gravesite to eliminate foreground details that would have distracted from the main subjects - the cross, fence and mountains.

Andy Piper is a designer at the Rocky Mountain News