thank you, everybody, for all your great comments!
and this is to robert:
just wanted to thank you personally for your very thoughtful comment, i do appreciate it! thank you so much for taking the time! you were wondering about maybe cropping the sky out of the picture - i did try that, and it was pretty good, but in the end i chose this crop with some sky in it... it just looked more balanced to me... thanks again! i am posting this here to encourage more comments like yours! irina.
I like this very much. The exposure is right on and the colors are exquisite. I am wondering if, perhaps, you might have left the sky in the horizon out all together and cropping down so that the horizon would then be just the line of trees. You might make a compensating crop in from the right. To me you have enough implication of the beauty of the day that you caught with the GREAT reflection of the sky in the creek. Love the lines of the creek and the purple borders running along them evaporating into a sea of purple. Stunning image any which way! Good Luck!!