Blue lake reflections

[SwissJon]

I went out hiking today with the dog and after an hours scramble up hill (Mountaineering rather than hiking in my book!) I came to this lake, known as "Le Lac Bleu" or the blue lake. And it is, bright blue caused by copper leaching out from the mountians.

I took a number of photos up there, but we're still very early in the season and there were a few clouds around and snow on the mountains. I took this with a 6 stop filter to get rid of tiny ripples and get a perfect reflection.

I've done my best to rescue this, but I find it very busy. It's quite heavily cropped horizontally because there was a tree that wasn't fully in the frame and was detracting from the photo.

So my questions are as follows:
I've paid no attention to the rule of thirds, does that detract from the photo?
I don't see any blown out areas on the histogram, but is it still a bit bright?
I put the horizon at the centre so that I got the reflection of the mountain in fully.. Is that a problem?
I'm really not sure about the busyness caused by the snow on the mountain opposite. Any suggestions on anything to improve that?
I feel like I should boost the greens a little, the greeny brown on the foreground is a bit yuck.
Any other suggestions on Compoition and PP would be more than welcome.

Exif Data

Creation date: 01/05/2011 15:57
Camera: NIKON D7000
Lens: AF-S DX VR Zoom-Nikkor 16-85mm F3.5-5.6G ED
Focal length: 16*mm*(equiv. 24*mm)
Aperture: F13
Exposure time: 1/1.3"
ISO speed rating: 100/21°
Program: Manual
Metering Mode: Center-weighted average
White Balance: AUTO1
Focus Mode: Manual
Image Stabilizer: Off
Noise Reduction: Off
Flash: Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode

[FlyingKiwiGirl]

Hey I'm no expert by a long shot but that is fabulous! I'll be keen to hear what others think about the horizon but I think it's perfect!

[Lori Hill]

Honestly I would kill to be able to take a shot like this one. So very beautiful!!

[Krusty79]

Wow, that's a beautiful lake and a great reflection. I think the water reflection shots are the only time where I like to see the horizon in the middle of the frame.

I do have to admit that the bright white areas of snow/ice in the tops of the mountains and in the reflection dominate the image when I think they should be taking more of a secondary role. I almost feel like I have to squint when I look at the top third of the image. The white clouds contribute to that. Whereas the middle third of the image is easy on my eyes.

I'm curious why that one part of the mountain is not copper-tinted like the rest of it?

That group of trees in the left third looks pretty interesting and may be worth a shot of their own. This is still a beautiful shot overall.

[NgaiHill]

Its a beautiful shot John. Like Lori said, I would kill to be able to take a shot like that, it was definitely worth the hike!
As for the horizon being central, I just saw another shot in sys and said the same thing - I think having it central in a relection shot like this is totally justified, I think you would be losing some balance from the scene if you tried to move the horizon up or down to comply with the rule of thirds.
As for the colour, I find the browns of the mountains very interesting but feel the lake could be bluer - is it true to the colour on the day? It just feels a little green to me and I think if you boost the greens further you will lose what blue colour you do have.

[RichardTaylor]

Not a critique, just a comment;

It all works for me. Beaut' capture.

[Bruce A]

Imagine living with sights like this around you. Beautiful capture indeed!

[dlambert]

Nice shot, Jon. I think I might have offset the main peak just a bit, since your line of reflection is right at the mid-point of the photo horizontally, but that's really not a big deal. It looks like a really challenging lighting situation -- you've got some really bright highlights on the left, and then it almost looks like the range starts to fall into some clouds on the right. I might try burning the snow in the upper left just a smidge, but that's really picking nits. It's a really beautiful shot as-is.

[benchdog]

Breath taking image!

I agree with Krusty79 snow/ice in the tops of the mountains dominate the image but I think it works in this case because its balanced in the reflection. The only other thing I see and this is really nick picking is that the horizon is not quite centered. There is a tad bit more sky between the mountain peak and the top of the image than there is in the reflection and the bottom.

Really nice work well done

[SwissJon]

Well I wasn't expecting that kind of positive feedback, I must admit. I'm glad I made the effort of the climb now.

Ok, to answer the Questions..

The copper tinting is last years grass growth, where the snow and ice froze it before it died off. It makes the mountains brown until this years growth has covered it, the brighter areas are where the sun hits it. I think the area you mean is in the centre frame isn't it Krusty? That's where a landslide happened and so you're seeing bare rock rather than dead grass. I'll come back here later in the year and take another photo, it should be greener, accentuating the grey contrast, but the tops of the mountains will be snow free and brown or grey too.

You're right about the group of trees, I featured them, along with the tree that caused me to crop this photo, in another photo I've posted on Flickr.

I think I might play around with the burn tool tonight, see if I can make any adjustments that reduce the brightness of the snow, I've already applied a 1 stop ND Grad in PP.

You can't see the colour of the lake in this photo really, it's lost because of the reflections, the colour is much more obvious in the other photos I posted on Flickr. I kinda like the almost perfect mirror, and the fact that the lake isn't a part of the photo. I'll tell you what, it was hard work keeping the dog out of the water for long enough to make the ripples small enough to get this.

The main peak was offset in the original, it just ended up centred because of the cropping I had to do to get rid of the tree branches. I hadn't noticed that the bottom gap was different to the top, I'll have a play with the crop a little this evening.