Monument Cove, Acadia National Park, ME
I’ll probably never get to this location again, as it is getting too treacherous at my age to make it across the long boulder and cobble field to get to it. I know there is a little haloing around the seastack. I just did a down and dirty quick edit for web posting. I just tried burning in the sky a little since it was a little overexposed.
Is this a composite: No
You brought home a very dramatic memory from that trip across the boulders. The sunset looks unreal, but I expect that is just what you want to convey about the way it felt when you sere there. For me, I wondered what would happen if more sunset tinge were apparent on the rocks and the white surf, so I increased magenta saturation in the rocks, and brushed (20% Soft Light) a bit of sunset color over the surf. I think the effect is to let the sunset connect or flow toward the viewer. Also vignetted a bit of bottom, but I wonder if that deadened the warm flow too much.
Wow!! The colors are awesome and don’t look overdone to me – the softer colors near the distant horizon anchor the sky in reality. Dick’s edit is a nice touch to take it from a 10/10 to an 11/10.
This is a really good image Michael. I didn’t think you could improve this but Dick’s processing skills did enhance it. The sky is amazing but there are many images with great skies. Your ability to see and put together a comp that goes with it is Not as easy. As they say “you nailed it”.
Good use of a vertical frame. Most of us don’t like 2:3 vertical landscapes but here it’s absolutely appropriate.
What a great sky, Mike, and you made a great composition to work with it. I love the sweeping curve of the shoreline and the diagonal line of the clouds pulling you into the image.
I think Dick’s edit bringing some sky color down into the rocks works well. I just have two small comments: the horizon needs a CCW rotation, and I might clone out that wave breaking near the horizon at the left edge.
Beautiful sky and light. I like Dick’s rework and agree with Craig about cloning out the white wave. Very well done.
Best shot of Monument Cove that I have ever seen, great work Mike 
This is such an unique view of an oft-photographed location, and I know you really had to work hard to get to this spot. It’s definitely a “Kids, Don’t Try This at Home” location to access. Did you enter the cobble beach from the south or from the north ? I’m glad that you resisted any temptation to head to Boulder Beach given you had a sky like this, by hitting Monument instead you came away with a really unique image.
I like the processing of the original post., wouldn’t change a thing about it.
This is outstanding and has to be one of my favorite images of yours, Mike! I will have to echo @Ed_McGuirk and say this is the “best shot of Monument Cove that I have ever seen”. To my eye everything looks very natural in this scene given the time of day.
Having seen that sloping boulder field I can imagine how hard it is to get down to this particular spot. Maybe we can take our hiking poles and give it another shot and scope out a different, less treacherous path down if it gets safe to travel again.
Michael,
When I stood above this cove during my recent visits, I wondered if someone had ever shot from the cove, I have never seen an image from below. Question answered. Great composition, colors and Billy Goat skills to get there. I know you and your brother have been to Acadia many times, as has Ed McGuirk, so it is quite a complement coming from them to come away with this wonderful image.
Remember this image the next time a big Nor’easter blows up the coast and you are looking down on it. 
Hi Michael,
I think you found a superb composition here. I think all the elements are nicely placed and are well balanced.
There are couple of things I see that may improve the image from a processing point of view. For the time of day and position of the setting/already set sun there seems to be an imbalance between the sky and the foreground exposures. The foreground to my eye is overexposed especially the water and the shadow detail in the rock. I think at this time of day your shadows should be a lot deeper and the luminance on the water darker in comparison to the sky. These elements should be picking up the glow from the radiant sky.
For the foreground I darkened the whole foreground area by abou 0.7 of stop. This addressed the shadows and luminosity issues. To accentuate the colour on the water i upped the warmth slightly of the burned areas, i also pushed the white overall whites (30 points or so) to bring back some of the detail in the brighter areas. To accentuate the light a bit on the foreground rock I used a radial filter to up the bright area. Just makes it stand out a bot more. You could go do some of the other bright areas too.
The other thing i felt was that the overall image but especially the mid to darker areas of the foreground lacked contrast. I did a selective contrast adjusment on these tones and also dropped the overall brightness of the image. These adjustment also helped the sky pop a bit more.
Thinking about it if you said you shot this in one shot and the sky was a bit bright, you could try dropping the exposure of the whole image quite a bit and then starting your adjustments from there, rather than my ‘rescue’ attempt.
I think looking at these elements will bring you a much more balanced (exposure) image. Feel free to fight back if you don’t agree 
The side by side is: left your original image and right my crude edit
great shot @Dick_Knudson! love that blazing sky. the comp works very well for me - congrats on finding a new angle on a often shot location!
regarding the processing i have a few points that stick out to me. mostly small nits, but imho they definitely should be adressed to make the image shine as it should.
sorry for the nit picking. this is a beautiful shot!
cheers,
joerg
Thanks for taking the time on a rework @Dick_Knudson. I like the added glow in the water but feel the rocks are a little too magenta. Thanks @Eugene_Theron for the rework. I’m liking your sky but feel the the landscape is a little too dark for the conditions. Thanks @Ed_McGuirk for the comments. I entered from the South side. I’ve never found an easy way down on the North. Thanks @Joerg_Bonner, @Harley_Goldman, @Alan_Kreyger, @Ed_Lowe, @Diane_Miller, @Igor_Doncov, @Craig_Moreau for the comments and suggestions.
@Michael_Lowe and @Dick_Knudson - sorry, i just realized i tagged the wrong person! 
