Arrowhead Sunrise

I had a fun weekend in Glacier Gorge last week. Spent some time up around Black Lake a couple of mornings.

This is a sunrise view of Arrowhead with McHenrys Peak obscured by trees.

Canon 5D, 17-40mm, 2 exp blend.

I like a lot of what's going on here, but it is suffering from the wide angle distortion(?). The tilted trees blocking McHenry's are distracting my eye and throwing me off. But the wet rocks and the fan of the water at the bottom of the falls are really nice, as are the light on the peaks, overall exposure and color.

My thoughts are similar to Scott's - nice light, nice colors and a beautiful scene. The tilting trees at the top of the slide are a little distracting, and I find myself really wanting to see McHenry's.

The exposure is well-controlled with the blending, but I might be tempted to burn in the grasses to the right of the water slide just a tiny bit as they seem brighter than they should be relative to the adjacent trees and the greenery on the left side of the water slide (or brighten up the trees and greenery?).

This makes me want to get up there for sunrise. I've made the hike to Black Lake, but only in the middle of the day.

Scott & Rick - Thanks for the suggestions. This was shot at a very wide angle and the perspective of looking upward also causes some distortion. It didn't really bother me - until now! I don't know, maybe some other folks will throw in their thoughts about that.

I agree with you Rick, I would like to have seen more of McHenrys here too, but the comp didn't allow. I shot several comps up and down this waterfall, and the others have McHenrys but less water. Your comment about the light I think is good too, Rick. I noticed this when processing, but that entire lower half of the image is all from one exposure, so I let it go. It's an easy fix, as I just blended in a little of the darker exposure. I think this one does look more natural. Any thoughts?

Bob, Your second version does have more pleasing lighting. I don't know how objectionable the lens distortion is for others, but once I noticed I couldn't ignore it. It's still a quite pretty scene. In my CS2 there is a feature in the filters menu that allows for some lens correction. I've only played with it a little, but might be worth a try?

I like the reverse-vertigo effect of looking up through a wide-angle lens. It kind of pulls me into the image.

Great shot, I do agree though,the tilted trees obscuring McHenrys is distracting, more so than the distant trees in the background right half. I do really like the foreground with fan shaped runout of the water. Looks like a good exercise for 4x5.