Jeff, At first I thought the same thing. Then I downloaded it and did some Photoshopping to see what it looked like with contrast boosted in the background. I found I didn't like it as well. There's something about that faint background and the slight color shift toward selenium toning that just works.
Thank you all - I appreciate the comments. Clearly, what seems like a cliché to my Africanized eyes can still look fresh to a wider audience.
As far as the debate about the contrast of the mountain is concerned, I personally think it is about right. Kilimanjaro is by far the tallest free-standing mountain in the world. The base is at about 3,500 feet, and the summit is just a shade under 20,000 feet, so you are looking at over 3 miles of elevation. Sure, Everest is higher in Altitude, but then again my 11 year old boy is higher than me when he stands on a chair! What is more, the summit is over 30 miles as the crow flies from where the picture was taken. This is one biiiiig object. So two things arise from this:
1. It is hard for the human eye to judge the scale of the thing, even when you are really there, let alone in a photo. This shot was taken at a relatively wide 140mm, and the thing still looks damn big.
2. Because of the huge distance from the eye to the mountain, naturally it is rather hazy and blue: there is not too much colour difference between it and the sky itself. So I am not surprised to hear from Russ that it looked "wrong" when the contrast was boosted further... because it just isn't like that in real life. Of course, landscape photos don't have to be exact facsimiles of real life, but they should, in my view, capture the essence. Changing the contrast in this case would be to change the essence.
Thanks again,
Ed