Yes, it is hand held. I can remove that with the Gimp, but I wasn't sure if it was caused by the sunlight on my lens. However, I did lay down in some weeds/flowers to take a few shots, so it's possible this a speck on the filter. Should be easy enough to edit out.
The picture doesn't do anything for me, but your sensor is really dirty...the left side of the picture has lots of dark spots caused by dust on the sensor.
The white spot on the right side looks more like a spot from lens flare.
not feelin the pic. nothing really that pops or is special about it. it's just a tower against blue sky. there's no depth to the image (nothing farther or closer in the composition). also, making it diagonal just makes it confusing. i think it would be a cooler if u were at the base of the tower, pointing up, following the lines of the tower. or if u took a pic with it composed against the horizon somehow. i know i'm a newb, but i'm not too bad at composition, as i've been a photoshop guy for a long time.
To pull something like this off, I feel you need a really strong sky to contrast the simpleness of the crane. As someone else said, its just a crane in front of a blue sky, lack of depth.
I do like how the different lines play with each other in the picture.