Not finished, but

[chrisc]

worried that I may have gone a bit too contrasty...

[robnaylor]

If this is the look you are aiming for, only you can say.
I like the contrasty defined treatment of the grass - very suitable.
IMO the sky is a little too grainy and "painterly" and looks it mis-matched to the grasses.

[The Wirefox]

I like the feel of this. The first thing that came to mind for me was the opening chapters of Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath even though the sky is cloudy. It just has that feel of agrarian oppression. Certainly makes me want to pack up the old Hudson and move down the road apiece. I agree with Rob's observations about the sky but it needs some graininess. The problem is that the grain is inconsistent do denoising the sky and then application of a film grain plugin may help...but I do like it

[chrisc]

I took it a step further, going back and reading the first four pages of the Grapes of Wrath to get that feel Steve suggested. I really couldn't do much with the sky, so I switched it for another, one I felt was more befitting that agraian opressive feeling. I still didn't feel the sky like I wanted to, so I added a touch of soft grain. What do you think?

"The Grasses of Wrath"

[jeeperman]

I like this one better Chris.

[robnaylor]

Better sky, and the panoramic format suits the subject.
To add a little more realism, I would fade the sky toward the horizon, and tone down the distant treeline a little.
Now the horizontals are emphasised more, I think it needs a slight clockwise rotation to straighten the water line?

[chrisc]

You don't miss much, do ya? ;D

Did the best I could with the horizon treeline as per lightening/rotating but it took forever and a day the first time to extract all those pretty little reed grasses from the new sky and I wasn't going there again. I'll just go back and reshoot some day.