Thanks Sadja and AuntiPode. In retrospect, I could have braved the water and pulled out those branches. But in addition I needed to look at the scene more carefully and realized the rock was going to be a major subject. Sadja and others suggested a lower angle, I get that a lot. I am going to need to figure that out.
AuntiPode, I guess the approach you mean is vignette. The crop looks pretty close to one of my above crops. Maybe you took off a bit more of the bottom. I guess its also a bit darker overall.
Actually, there's were many selections with gamma and exposure changes to effectively re-light the scene - lightening parts and darken other parts. The object of my intent was to place emphasis on the water and the dominant rock and to lessen the rocks in the lower left and parts of the upper bank to control the movement of the eye and to try to guide how the eye scans the image. For example, in the original the brightness and interesting character of the rocks in the lower left pulls the eye down, to the left and then out of the frame. I used darkening and selective brightening to try to guide the eye around the water and the rock to focus the visual interest on a subset of potential points of attention to reduce the perceived business.
