I deffo preffere the second one. Whilst the compositon on both could be improved, the second has more attractive colours, and crucially, has a focal point.
In the first, the colours (and the gradient of which) work well, and the whole scene looks as though it has alot of potential. However, for me it lacks a focal point, and in this case more crucially some lead in lines. Lastly something that is easily solved, but the twigs at the bottom are distracting. My advice for shots like this where there is not massive amounts of interest in the distance to work with, is to make the foreground really bold and obvious. Perhaps get closer to the ground? Perhaps even find something that creates an interesting silouhett (SP?) with the reflection in the water and have this at the bottom of the frame? Just a thought
With the second, whilst imho the composition is stronger, there are still a few easy things that you could do to vastly improve the shot. Firstly, composing the horizon on the bottom horizontal thirds line would work well, as this shot needs slightly more foreground and slightly less sky. regarding the tree on the right, I think I may have either included it all, or not at all. Half a tree can be a little anoying imo. Otherwise I really like it.
Hope that all came out right, and that it might be of some help?
Oh and rob.e, "Life is like photography. You use the negatives to develop."
I like that
