"Gold, Frankincense and Mirth"

With Christmas around the corner and three floating stones, this title was the first to come to mind. Gold is obvious, Frankincense is for the fresh, fragrant air of this morning with just a hint of local wood stove smoke, and Mirth is for the spicy sunrise. I used a darker exposure to preserve the rich sky tones and then blended in the detail of the rocks and mountains. If for only the sky exposure without blending, the mountains and rocks would be pure silhouettes. With the blended in detail, the scene is more consistent with how I remember it was. When viewing the Larger preview, you may observe some dust specks in the mid UL. Yes, I forgot to clean it up, but dust specks they are not. The blurred movement of feeding birds on the wing was unavoidable. In the full res version, there are hundreds of floating birds in the scene on the distant water surface, with one visible in this web res version just above the left most rock. The potential for a grand sunrise was developing, but somehow, the pre-dawn colors faded as quickly as they were emerging, leaving me with nothing captured. As the sun gained on the horizon, the golden light intensified near the source, so I zoomed in on the distant shore and isolated these three granite boulders as a foreground anchor. Simple, but effective I hope!

Please view Larger! No, really, Larger is better! Thanks for your comments,

suggestions, opinions or anything else you want to discuss!

beautiful picture radiates tranquility wonderful tones

Wonderful photo, Mark ... as always you've brought us another beautiful and skillful portrayal of this lovely morning!  Title is terrific too!   Merry Christmas!

This is one of those where, honestly, I am torn. I really like the composition and underlying structure of the image. But the colour treatment to me is a little overdone. I wonder how this would have worked as a monochrome (silver, sepia, or B+W)?

Thanks Rumen, Mark and BM! Well, BM, I guess the only way I can respond is to say this is how it appeared based on visual memory, yet as I said, I used a darker exposure to give it a deeper color. If it looks any different, I would say the colors are consistent, but that the scene was about a stop brighter. This is no different than someone using a grad to darken the sky to a point that was darker than the actual scene. As far as mono, I think that is an excellent suggestion. I even thought about a straight b&w conversion from the various comps I made on this morning. I will give it a go, and if something turns out positive, I may re-post this comp. Thanks for your observations and suggestions!!!

Great colors on the simple composition! Well layered mountains! Very relaxing and calming spectacle, I can't take my eyes off!

PDE

This place is beautiful and relaxing, your exposure is set to an optimum point of quality and so the selection of the DOF setting who brought out the most fine details here at the entire frame work, the mountains in the background and the golden tone at the foreground are extra bounce and well add to the amazing composition of this superb work.

Thank you for sharing it and wishing you all of the best.

Image what it would be like if we weren't able to preserve moments like this one to prolong the memory, thank God for our little capture boxes. Well done Mark and thanks for the memories.  Best regards rek.

another stunning landscape from you.

the perfect exposure make it impressive and real-looking. the composition is working very well. great shot.

Mark, this is a wonderful photo in terms of both composition and light.  I find the colors to be perfectly natural, certainly in keeping with the exposure in the sky and on the land.  Equally striking to me is the texture of the water:  the very small ripples add much to the photo (as compared to a perfectly flat water or to one in which the wind was producing much larger waves).  Exceptionally well done.

Thank you Pierre, Rashed, Richard, Zsolt and Stephen!! I appreciate the kind words. As I stated earlier, the scene was definitely brighter in terms of luminosity, but I intentionally went with a darker exposure that enhanced the deepening of color, meanwhile, I utilized a brighter exposure to retain detail in what would have been silhouette portions of the scene. Therefore, I won't say it is a reproduction, more an interpretation. No doubt, it was still a grand spectacle of color, just brighter overall. Many a photographer use this technique to get richer images. Stephen, this is a large reservoir that rarely gets glass like reflections outside of protected coves. This morning was extremely calm, so the ripples were as close to calm as it may ever be, therefore, they offered much reflection while still showing texture. Yes Richard, if not for our "little capture boxes", I don't know how I would kill time at the computer! 

I really like this image.  You have great light, color, and detail.  The image is sharp and soft at the same time.  The warm golds really make the image luminous.  You have just the right amount of detail in the shadow areas.

Hi Larry, Thanks for the approving comment!!

Beautifully done, Mark!

Always a pleasure to hear from you Leo!!