Frozen Jellyfish? w/REPOST or riposte?

Out walking the dog on Thursday, I had my pocket camera with me & chanced upon this interesting ice formation.

Well composed and an intriguing ice formation. Any way to bring down the bright trees in the background a bit further? I find them a bit distracting. Also, is there some kind of a halo just above the snowy boulder that is just left of center, near the top of the frame?

Well composed and an intriguing ice formation. Any way to bring down the bright trees in the background a bit further? I find them a bit distracting. Also, is there some kind of a halo just above the snowy boulder that is just left of center, near the top of the frame?

Love the low angle composition and the title is very appropriate. I agree with the sunlit background being distracting but the excellent comp helps to lessen that impact. I think it would be well worth it to revisit this after the sun goes down!

Definitely worth a revisit with better conditions.

Well, gentlemen, this was not a job for light hands. And a revisit would have had to have been as soon as I got back to the truck. The light was phenomenal when I walked back by it 4 hours later, but by the time I would have gotten back to the truck, packed up my DSLR, tripod, filters, etc, and walked back, it probably would have been an hour too late. Today was the first time I had to go back, but it had snowed 5". I had initially lightened & played with the "fog" option (which is what created the fuzzy "halo" Glenn noted) to de-emphasize the background because just darkening that upper right corner actually made the trees stand out more & drew the eye too much. Burning didn't really work, nor did darkening with a GND effect, or color swapping or taking down brightness, structure,saturation, etc. Those yellow & greens were just stubborn. So I converted that part to B&W, but still had annoying light spots, then patched with the ghost trees from the left. A much heavier-handed processing than I like doing, but it may be worth it. What do you think?

You certainly eliminated the problem of the distractingly bright background, but at the cost of making the shot look a bit too artificial for my taste (and, it sounds like, for yours). All I was really suggesting was pulling down the highlights and whites in Lightroom. The trees didn't ruin the shot; they were just a bit distracting. In the jpeg it looks like nothing was completely blown out in the background except perhaps a tiny patch of sky, so it looked like there was something to work with.

Oh. Duh. LR won't open ARW files, so used ACR.

I agree with Glenn that the black background is too dark. This last post however is much better without that blur effect. I think I would try darkening the sunlit trees a bit more. They don't need to be as dark as the trees on the left in the shadows as that would look unnatural. If the sunlit trees was "0" and the shadowed trees were a 10, my suggestion for the sunlit trees would be about a "2-3" value if that makes any sense, sort of like the Ansel Adams BW zone treatment. In any case, I just love that low point of view and the cool subject.

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Really interesting formation, Monika. Nice find! The last repost is the best IMO. Worth the effort, I think.

What the heck, try this one out, too.

Nice ice formation

Wow, those are quite a few options to choose from now. I think I like the 2nd to the last one the best, but the last one is also right there as well.