Hi Nathan, dont let the "Kit" monkeys scare you off! i dont know too much about Canon but your equipment looks just fine to me. I have some shots from Old Nikon cameras that most people wouldnt even bother with nowadays... It's the person who stands behind the camera that counts (thats why my shots are dodgy
).
I have gone through the whole sunset thing myself and when you look at a photograph you ask, what makes it interesting? What draws me to it? I did that little exercise with the sunset shots a while back. I picked some photographs and asked myself what i liked about those stunning sunset photos? The answer was although the sunset was great, it was the location that made it, and an interesting focal point. I have a lot of sunset shots and guess what, there nice sunsets but at the end of the day there just "Nice Sunsets". Like Gabriel says there is a lot about and to make yours stand out you need to make them... different, special and its often the location that usually does that.
Having said all that No1 i quite like this but not sure about the colour in the sky, was it really that orangey red? or was it the effect you were trying to achieve? It looks a tad saturated and could there be some colour cast from the filter in there? I love the clouds, and the highlights brushing the grasses in the foreground. The rays of the sun look good enough at f16 but as Ian says watch those small apertures. The Cambridge Colour web site gives a good explanation of diffraction the last time i looked. (its good to know these things).
No2 sits better with me maybe a tad under exposed and the dark area on the right could do with a lift, perhaps sit the sun off to the right or left?
Hop you find the piggery is still there would probably be a good focal point iven if it was tumble down.
Everyone has their own view on how a photograph should look, and rightly so, sometimes we struggle with todays convention of what a photograph "Should" look like. However being different isnt always being wrong, just different. Personally I always try and remember what the shot looked like and try and portray what i saw.
I think (like a lot of my early sunset shots) the photos lack a good focal point with the exception of the sun itself (that's the cruel bit) but there something about them i quite like.
Hope this helps