Once the sun is in the frame, it's blown out. There isn't enough cloud cover here to shield it except in the first image. A blown out sun usually adds nothing to the image. The sun is least effective in the last shot. I wouldn't even have it in the frame unless something hid it. Other than the color, the images don't communicate to me why you wanted to take them. Realize that pros have been shooting this stuff for a long time, so when we look at it, we want to look at something different or at least the basic concept done exquisitely. You're shooting a silhouette of rocks and a blazing sun over water. That shot has been taken millions of times. Your job is to approach it in a different way that would give most people something they haven't seen before. It doesn't have to be revolutionary, just different. When you're there, you have to recognize that these shots will be the least interesting. You probably knew when you were there that these shots have been done before, and that's probably why you wanted to tackle them for yourself, to see for yourself how they worked. That's OK. You may need to shoot more to understand how they work. But use them as a starting point and then work the scene and keep working it until you have something new. Look for an angle, an object, a detail, a texture, something that you can use to give it another layer of interest.
