How is my composition? Sunset over lake photo

[nickb98c]

Spent a week down at the lake.m I caught this beautiful sunset with my camera. Hows my color and composition? Too dark? I used a 30 sec exposure, with an 4.5 f/stop I recall. I did some touch up with adobe elements(noise reduction to sky with soften tool/contrast and saturation edit) What do you think? *I do apologize for the large file size*

Here is the cropped photo that several suggested I try

Original

And here is another favorite from the shoot, that I reversed in adobe. I had several different Ideas on possibly framing them together.

Thanks!

 

[tertius]

I absolutely love the color and most of the photo but the composition seems to be too heavily weighted on the right.

 

[nickb98c]

A crop could fix this, although I do like the amount of black land in the foreground. I think If I removed some it would have the same feel. Thanks! I do have others I will upload.

 

[TiCoyote]

The colors are beautiful, but this would work better in landscape orientation. You could balance the dark, clear lines on the right with a longer expanse on the left.

 

[PhotoXopher]

I agree, landscape orientation could have helped - but I love the colors and silhouette of the tree.

 

[pbelarge]

Nick
This shot has great color as others have mentioned, and I also like the silhouette of the foreground and trees.

I think I know what you tried by having this in portrait.
I would crop some from the top, bottom and left sides of the shot. Not a lot but some. I know you like the foreground, but try it anyway, just "saveas" and you will not destroy the original. If you do, let us see it.
sometimes cropping has a better affect than you realize.

 

[reznap]

I don't know... I think it's just beautiful. I'd take a little off the bottom, just to about where you placed the signature.

 

[cnutco]

Other than what has been said, great shot! Love the color too!

 

[LoveAlwaysJami]

Wow, gorgeous color.

 

[Abby Rose]

Oh, I love this.

 

[Gaerek]

I disagree with what others have been saying about landscape orientation. I think landscape would totally kill what you were trying to accomplish. It looks really good. But I like the last one the best, I think.

 

[flashgordio]

im new to all this ..all i can add is that i like it the way you did it ..re editing it would only take away from the image you wanted when you shot it...keep the faith...you are in it for you........

 

[HikinMike]

I like the compositions. I wasn't there, but I think the colors is a bit too blue and maybe a bit too saturated. But like I said, I wasn't there. Pretty place though.

 

[nickb98c]

I would say 90 percent of the color was there in the raw image, but after adjusting the saturation and contrast, it really made the colors pop. Like I said before, I had a long shutter speed, and it seemed to give the sky a nice glow. Thanks for all the positive comments everyone! Its really encouraging.