Thanks for the feedback, everyone. The dark line where the mountains meet the sky was the effect of the feathered edge of the brush hitting the mountains while burning the sky. Perhaps I should've backed off a bit or dodged them back to a middle tone. I suppose it put many people off.
I also was tempted to boost the contrast on this image but most of the Ansel photos I studied were similar to this, having a majority of middle tones, a few highlights, and most of the gradation of tones in the sky or clouds.
I spent about 4 or 5 hours dodging and burning, making sure I kept detail in almost all of the shadowed areas. I made an 8x12 print of this image and it looks amazing! 100x's better than this websized version. It also appears to have more tonal range and contrast compared to the monitor as well.
Great subject, but I feel you could have got more out of it. Getting really low, stopping down and using a slow shutter speed (with an ND filter even), you could have achieved a very deep DOF and captured some close up texture/reflections in those wonderful rocks. As it stands this is anaesthetised by the eye-level POV and the somewhat heavy-handed editing (sky & horizon particularly), while the finer points of the subject are lost in the busy scene and lack of focal point.
This is definitely a top contender in the challenge. Excellent composition. Great depth of field. One minor observation is the sharp line where the land meets the sky, I think this small area could be improved some. This is one of my highest rated photographs for this challenge. Beautiful in every way!
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