Simply stunning. It has a Galen Rowell look that I like very much.
Wow, that's quite a compliment. Mountain light photography is such a cool little studio to go see. I love that they have a "vault" - but going there also showed me how far camera technology has come since film days. He's one of my 'role models' so to speak.
He shot all 35mm on Nikon as far as I know and even though he had perfect technique (according to his books), the prints when blown up display sharpness issues. Without shooting 4x6 format, there's only so large you could go with film. In a way when you look at them it doesn't really matter that there is some enlargement degradation because the subjects and comps are so compelling typically.
But beyond that I feel incredibly fortunate that I can bring things closer to what my eye sees now. This is slightly "HDR" god forbid in that I took some details from the tree and brought them back in by layering & masking an image with more shadow detail and an overall lighter exposure. This would have been so challenging for Galen, although still possible. I suppose with a shot like this it's worth the extra effort, but for me it was simple and only took a few minutes. Although separation and color theory here was tough. I looked at this shot for weeks before finally deciding it was mostly fine with very little alteration. I had to mute some of the twilight blue, and tame the magenta/red glow a bit.
After this shot the sky went flat for a while. Then it blew up again, with the more direct sunrise civil twilight color. So I have more from this morning to push out at some point.