This was a picture from several years ago. I would love togo back and reshoot it with a different sky and more room on the bottom right to better center the water, Other thoughts and suggestions welcome
(If this is a composite, etc. please be honest with your techniques to help others learn)
Single exposure. 5DM4 ISO 200 17mm f/16 1/50 sec
Hi John,
I find this to be a dynamic composition. If you go back I feel that side lighting would work well here or if it is backlit again perhaps some diffused light piercing through the clouds will make the foreground more enticing
I also like this composition, John. Like Nathan said, looks very dynamic. I will however rotate this CCW by a few degrees. Another thing that I am not too sure about is the tonal rendition of the mountain, especially the one in the middle. Looks like it’s unnaturally bright given the clouds over it.
I think this image has a lot of potential. I like the composition. I think your thoughts on change would be a nice addition. As presented, there are some obvious halos at edge of the central mountain and the sky. Looks like the mountain was brightened up and doesn’t feel quite natural and the mask edge bled into the sky. Easy enough to go back and correct in post.
You have a great lead in here with the water, and a fantastic backdrop! I don’t mind the water being off center a bit. Zooming in I noticed that the fg lost a bit of sharpness, so maybe a focus stack could have helped there. Like @Keith_Bauer wrote, the mountain lacks some contrast and the edges of the used mask(s) bleed into the sky. If you have files that have the whole dynamic range of the sky I would work on the highlights there to recover them and give them some detail. Subtle dodgin and burning in the whole sky can maybe give the clouds some more depth?
Shooting this again while the pink flowers are in bloom would be nice during sunrise or -set with some pinks in the sky 
A bit nitpicking, but in the mg in the darker part of the water there seems to have been a waterdrop on your lens. This can f.e. be cloned out, or removed with a masked curve adjustment or by using frequency separation.
It’s a beautiful scene, you found a fantastic location here!
John,
A most grand and beautiful mountain landscape. I think the composition is very strong. Personally, I think the sky was advantageous here and the image really only needs some tweaks.
The mentioned haloing around the main peak is the biggest thing. For me, I think the blue sky should be, might be, need to be a little more pale? I’m thinking the sun is right there behind the clouds and the blues shouldn’t be that deep? Maybe it’s just me. Otherwise, I think you did a great job handling the light and exposure.
As I mentioned, I think the composition is excellent. I don’t think you need to center the water any more than it already is - But I like that it’s slightly off center which gives the comp more of an offset view, rather than dead-on. Hope that makes sense. Plenty of room at the bottom as well. I think nicely balanced.
Lon
Thanks Nathan, Adhika, Keith, Ron, and Lon. I agree with everything you have said except I would still like to have a little more room on the bottom right. This was one of the first images I processed in Photoshop and I agree I was a little clumsy in my blending techniques. Maybe I will go back and try reprocessing with hopefully a little more skill.
I’m not sure about the water in this image. It’s so powerful that you are drawn to it rather than being led to the mountain. I’ll have to think if that thought has any merit. I feel like I’m drawn down if I look at the lower part and drawn up if if look above the water.
The main issue I have with this scene is, first, you can pull up the highlights quite a bit, until you have some true white in the scene. It feels very dingy and dull which isn’t appropriate for this kind of lighting or time of day. Everything would pop a bit more just from doing that. Also, you have haloes around the mountains, either from using ‘highlights’ sliders too aggressively, or from poor exposure blending, it’s hard for me to tell which it was, but nonetheless it is very noticeable here and distracting. Technical flaws will inhibit people from being able to focus on the actual subject of the scene and from receiving the message you hope to convey.
It feels a little bottom heavy as well, I would recommend a 4:3 or even 5:4 crop to get rid of some of the stream down below, so that you draw more attention to the peaks with more balanced visual weight.
