This is the location I visit every autumn to capture unique conditions of colorful foliage and a particular angle of sun rays, which illuminate the small island in the closed flooded quarry.
Conditions are rare and happen only a few times during each season, in a 1-1,5 hrs window after sunrise. It makes this place very peaceful and quiet, as you can find yourself completely alone there. In my edit, I tried to convey this sense of serenity and the magical atmosphere of the place, where the sun selectively illuminated the island and the water directly around it, while other parts of the frame remain dark.
To achieve this I work mostly with colors (separation between warm parts where the sun hit directly) with the cool shadows in the background. As balancing colors is still hard for me, I’m sure I didn’t do it right. 
To add a touch of magic, I went for low contrast and applied a sight Orton effect at the end of my workflow.
If you would like to fiddle with the RAW file yourself, bear in mind that the scene was almost in the dynamic range of my camera (except for a few pixels in the darkest shadows). Because of that, the RAW file itself came out with high contrast and some tint to it, so it will probably require some heavier processing to get all the values to the correct place (eg. double processing). Apart from that it’s a pretty straightforward scene. I’m curious how you would edit it!
Raw File
Sunrise Lake.dng (23.4 MB)
You may only download this file to demonstrate how you would process the image. The file is Copyright of the photographer, and you must delete the raw file when you are done. Please post a jpg of what you created, explain what you did, and why you did it.
