Beginner needs help...

[Lisa Chapman]

And looking again, the photo's actually not bad, you could crop along the top edge - the whitish sky isn't adding much to your photo. If you go out and try it again, I'd suggest framing a little lower; if you brought the camera down a little just to the top of that cloud you could've gotten a bit more foreground and probably a better balance to your composition.

You could probably crop this one and brighten it up and improve it. It might be interesting to go out there again and walk around a little and look at the scene from different vantage points - notice how what you see in the viewfinder changes. You could try straight on or from one side or the other. Sometimes a step or two or a few can make a difference, or try scrunching down, changing the angle, see what you're getting - better or worse? Try reframing and see then what you get. Take more than one photo and look thru them later to see what looks best.

Thank you! I am really eager to go back out and re shoot this. Sadly My car door slammed hard on my knee cap and I am now in a brace and on crutches, I am so bummed! It'll have to wait but, I will be back out there as soon as I can hold that camera steady again.

 

[ac12]

The thing about a sunset (or even clouds) is that there is no ONE right exposure.
I will bracket like nuts, or push the exposure up to 6 stops under, all trying to get a different look.
Sometimes what looks blah on the back of the camera will look GREAT on the computer, so don't discard in the camera.

 

[ac12]

It looks like the hands/mittens are in focus, but not the eyes. With people, you generally want the eyes in focus even if that means other parts will be outside the DOF and will end up blurry.

Lisa,
What exposure mode are you in?
On my Nikon, "Auto" puts the autofocus into "closest subject" mode. This means whatever the camera detects as closest to it, will be what it focuses on. That could explain the closer glove in focus. As a result, I never use 'Auto' mode. Program lets ME select what I want the camera to focus on.

I mostly shoot in Manual Mode but I took the sunset shot in Aperture priority.

The other thing is your AF mode.
On a Canon T7i, group/area mode will use closest subject logic.
For my yearbook photographers, I have them use single point AF, so that the camera won't focus on the wrong person.