Alright, the moment of truth... 21 submissions... Thanks everyone for participating!
The things that struck me when I was there, were the sky filled with cirrocumulus clouds (had to look that up) and the warm light sweeping over the landscape. To get as many of the clouds in the shot as possible, I pulled out the Olympus 9mm body cap lens that I had bought 2 months prior. (That was my only ultra-wide-angle lens, and after having bought and sold the Olympus 9-18mm, it again is.) The shot was OK, but there was much left to do in post-processing, such as:
- Getting the exposure of the sky and the foreground right. To the eye, these were both bright, so in my opinion they should be bright in the end result as well.
- Recovering the highlights around the sun in a pleasing way. Even in the EV-1 shot, a substantial area was blown out. And the challenge is to get a nice gradient from the overexposed area to the rest.
- Fixing the white balance. I think the camera decided a bit cooler temperature than how I perceived the scene.
- Maybe correcting for the distortion.
- Maybe cleaning up the bike path.
On top of this, I kind of expected someone to get really creative and insert some birds somewhere, or to insert a motorbike on the bike path, or something like that.

Maybe next time!
So after going through all the submissions, this is the top three I came up with:
- First place: @roboroto with entry #2. Very natural result. You did a good job on the highlight recovery, the colours, and bringing out the clouds nicely.
- Second place: @Zapp DJR with entry #2. A little bit over the top, but I like the mood. Warm and cozy.
I had a really hard time choosing between your edit and the one by @roboroto.
- Third place: @BosseBe with entry #2. Nice black-and-white edit. Focused on the clouds, without making them too contrasty.
Congratulations to
@roboroto! Looking forward to the next challenge!