Spent the night at the top of the mountain, and was rewarded with the most incredible sunset and sunrise. A stitch of two photos to get the beauty of the lake and the mountains.

Incredible.

Where is this?

Wow this is mind blowing !!!

Looks like Mooorr-doooorrrr!!!

Thanks for the comments. It is the top of Niederbauen Chulm, near Luzern. I put that in the description, but somehow it was changed to "not in database".

Pics are just getting silly now!

Impressive stuff, congrats on cracking shot.

Awesome, and not overly HDRish congratulations

Congratulations! This photo was chosen as Photo of the Week, based on votes by registered users over the past 7 days.

Nice one Mike, I really love the mood in this.

While this is a fantastic image, in my opinion it is not a photograph. When Ansell Adams stood on top of his Station wagon with his large plate camera he took a photograph, an image of what was actually in front of him. I think some people have lost, or never had a visual ceativity of the moment.
Discuss.

When Ansell Adams stood on top of his Station wagon with his large plate camera he made the photograph he intended. Not a factual representation of the view in front of him, but an intentionally "hyper-real" (his word, BTW) image that aimed to evoke the emotion of being there. He carefully judged the time, the weather, the exposure parameters, and the development to get the negative that would allow him to produce the image he wanted. He then printed it just as carefully, adjusting the exposure to different areas so that they represented the scene as he intended it to be seen. Bear in mind also, that good silver film effectively _IS_ HDR, compared to a normal DSLR shot. You can get 10-12 stops out of the film he used, whereas a DSLR without HDR only gives you 6-8.

Nothing short of stunning!

Very occasionally in many years of climbing I have been out on the hill at such moments. This brought those rare moments to mind. Many thanks. Outstanding.

=> Scallywanderer. Rasilon was absolutely right, the idea that Ansell Adams just pointed his camera and sent the film off to Boots is totally wrong. He spent ages processing, developing and adjusting exposure in different parts of the images. The point is that your eyes have a very wide dynamic range while the range in cameras (especially digital ones) is much lower. Therefore that image is much more like what you would see if you were there, you don't think its "realistic" because it doesn't look like your perception of what a photo should look like, which is conditioned from the thousands of photos you have seen in your life.
Obviously nobody can tell you that you should like it (this isn't art school) that's your choice. However, I am sure that its fair to say Mike Meysner doesn't have "visual creativity of the moment". I am guessing that when he stood there taking several bracketed shots to do his HDR he was intentionally trying to capture the high dynamic range that his eyes could see but a conventional photo would lose. That seems pretty creative to me. And really any photograph is a somewhat biased representation of the view, its biased by the photographers choice of frame, exposure, etc. So I think that perhaps you like lots of people, don't like the effect HDR gives, and that's fine, that's your subjective opinion, but I don't think it's fair to accuse the photographer of lacking creativity. You asked for a discussion :-)

Wow, love the discussion everyone, many thanks for the comments, really enjoy reading it. Some thoughts from me:
First, for sure it is a photograph. It came out of my camera and except for a bit of cropping I have added and taken away nothing that was not in the original file.
Second this is NOT an HDR bracketed shot, but a single image (well two images that are stitched together), where I have used a technique called “tone mapping” to equalize the very high contrast in the original photos. The reason I did this, is that otherwise parts of the photos are either very over exposed or underexposed, and do not reflect the magnificence of what I saw that evening. Tone mapping allows you to get at the hidden information in the RAW file, and IMHO get closer to the original experience.
One last thought. Don’t underestimate how much planning and waiting goes into good mountain photography. You cannot make a good photo from poor base material. To get this shot, I walked to the top of the mountain, and then spent several hours waiting for the right moment, before sleeping the night in a tent.
But agreed, it is all subjective. Thanks again for the interest!

Well, it's a pity you went to so much trouble and ended up with something that looks like a bad painting.

The usual discussion that occurs when a photo has some manipulation to enhance the image. A really lovely image but why the bits of fence post in the corner? The problem with resolving the problems resulting from extreme dynamic range is the tonal balance between these tonal opposites. You just can't please everyone with your solution, whatever that is. As for that school of no manipulation whatsoever, surely the resultant image is the perogative of the photographer and their 'vision' as to how the final look should be presented. Like it or love it, it is solely the creative output of the photographer that stands. The votes here demonstrate what most on UKC think about this particular photo. Well done Mike.

Like it or love it or, indeed, loathe it.....

It's art, but is it a photo? :-)

Well, I like it anyway....

Stunning....

This is a stunning image, but I cannot work out if I actually like it or not! Sean has hit the nail on the head, it is photo of the week based on votes and no matter how many insulting comments you make Robert Durran, that is not going to change. Why not throw another one in just for good measure though? I can just imagine you sat at your computer, typing the first insult. Not being happy, you come back again later, have a read of Sean's comment and cannot stop yourself from adding another insult, just in case people had not read the first one. Brilliant. I applaud you Sir.

doesnt look natural at all.

Alex, my first comment was simply saying what I genuinely think; a lot of trouble seems to have been taken to create some very mediocre art. My second was merely correcting what I assumed was a typo.

Great shot.

Hell - you processed it to death.

Robert Durran, If you don't like it then don't look at it, I think it's ace.

Robert Durran, I've just had a look at your photos. Some of them are terrible.

Simes303, true, but some of them may be there for interest rather than because they are good photos. But you're right I should stop looking at this photo, but you know that thing about car crashes......

Simes303, true, but some of them may be there for interest rather than because they are good photos. But you're right I should stop looking at this photo, but you know that thing about car crashes......

Simes303, true, but some of them may be there for interest rather than because they are good photos. But you're right I should stop looking at this photo, but you know that thing about car crashes......

Quite simply this is not a photograph, its an image, one that has been created using a number of special Effects.
Sadly, it looks artificial and without any natural beauty.

As we all know no matter how much tweaking you do to a photograph it will never match the true beauty of what the photographer saw....Mike is the only one who can appreciate this fully because it is locked in his memory

Amazing image. My first impression is that it's unreal, but then sometimes nature does look unreal! Also, the problem here I think is that computer/TV screen doesn't approach the dynamic range of the scene or our eyes. So something has to give to present the whole coherently on-screen, without some bits being white or black. And the photographers creative approach to that gives rise to many opinions, as here!

All the haters mystify me. Mike saw a wonderful sunset, made an impressive image, and shared it with all of us. Need it be something more than that? Thanks Mike!

It's a visually stunning image for sure. I would comment that it is a tad confusing to the eye. You're instantly drawn to the sunset, but then distracted by the reflection on the lake and, as someone else has mentioned, the gate posts on the left hand side. I think you would be able to appreciate it better printed at full size than how it appears on a computer monitor.