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George,
I've been looking at this image daily since you posted it and couldn't sort out my thoughts about it at first. Please forgive my begging off on a more formal structured critique and let me just say what I've been thinking.

It seems like two different images to me; top half (trees, sky and moon) and bottom half (rocks, water and branches). Having said that, I must add that each half doesn't seem to add much to the other. I like the bottom half best and in fact I like it a lot! I think it could stand on its own as a beautiful and evocative image.

With that in mind, I could also see this image with a much darker top half. As I view the image my initial focus point is the place of sharpest and greatest contrast: the relatively bare rock edge next to the darker trees above. From there my eye wants to read down into the beautiful shapes and forms below. Unfortunately, it seems like my eye also gets pulled away by what's going on above and the overall message of the image isn't getting through to me.

I previously wondered if the image would work more effectively in B&W but I think that was my way of wishing the two parts of the picture would come together better.

Re the moon: In the second image I bet you use a combo of a very faint global drop shadow around it and then some burning in of the edge all around - possibly a little blurring even. It would have to be very subtle but against the relatively light blue sky I think it would help. Even so, I think the moon would seem a little more at home in a darker overall top half of the image.

In spite of what I said above, there is an awful lot to like about the image. Thanks for sharing it as it has really provided me some food for thought.

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Buddy,

This is a little creepy because almost everything you said is also how I feel about this image. Actually I did darken the sky from the original but maybe not enough. But you are right about the separation between the top and bottom. I wanted this to work with the moonrise, but I may have been asking too much from this composition. This image was actually alot of work and I like it on alot of levels, but I don't think I would go for 30" print. Just for kicks I'm including the original out of the camera to show what I did in PP.

Thanks for the feedback. It is always appreciated.