WC 571 -favorite mistake

It's a very nice scene! The bear is beautiful and it's really cool seeing him the waterfall.

Yeah, there are things that could be better, but getting to see and photograph this bear was a wonderful experience.

What a neat scene to be able to witness! At least you have a shot to remember this experience by even if it you wish you could have done things differently. The bear looks to be in good focus so you could probably do a crop from the left or right to emphasize him more if you wished to try to improve it some. And possibly toy more with contrast, colors, etc. in post-processing. But yes, now you have an excuse to go back since you are a more skilled photographer!

Being there and having seen this is worth way more than the picture, but I can sure understand the strong desire to go back for a redo. I'm not sure how you could use fill light unless you were way to close to the bear for your own safety or had studio lighting. My main suggestions in this would be to crouch/sit down (if you weren't already) to raise those branches, intruding from the top, higher up in (or even out of) the frame for a clearer view of the bear and the falls, move the bear away from center, and zoom out to 200. The excitement of a first encounter like this is what the hunting world calls buck fever and even though I haven't hunted in 45 years and have been taking pictures for 30, I still have this problem when I get my first good look at a new animal....maybe when I grow up.

Lighting & technique aside, it's still a good representative of your first? bear in the wild.
I think some overall & selective brightness on the subject would help a lot here.
Like your pano LP version, I'd just move it of-center left.
Great post for this theme Lindy

Per our conversation Lindy:
I took your LP pano version and took a bit off the left, moving the subject off-center left.
I then just brightened globally. then a bit more on the bear selectively.
Results would be better with your high res copy of course..