Staubbach Falls, Lauterbrunnen, Switzerland

I spend a lot of time in photography dealing with too much contrast. Post-processing techniques, HDR, and shooting early and late help minimize contrast. The reason contrast is usually not desirable is because detail is lost -- shadows go dark and highlights look overexposed. In this picture, however, it was the extreme contrast I found captivating. Rain in the morning had cleared, and the midday sun brilliantly backlit the stunning 1000 foot Staubbach Falls in Lauterbrunnen, Switzerland. I took other shots using HDR, but for this image I exaggerated the contrast by including the sun and by exposing for the highlights and letting the shadows go dark . . . as I used to do with film. I used a 45mm focal length on a 24-105mm zoom, and my settings were 1/2000, f/7.1, and 125 ISO.