Bob , Sorry this doesn't work for me , The GOLDEN GLOW is on the wrong side of the subject matter ,
Land building in shadow , Yacht in shadow , and that signiture I cant stop looking at it , distracting ,
I do understany you want it for a reason
There are some issues with the exposure, it doesn't look natural due to the difficulty of shooting into the sun and trying to recover details. The sky is a bit too dark and parts of the picture look oversaturated. If you've got Lightroom the HDR merge is very good if you bracketed exposures at the time, allowing you to get a natural looking image from the DNG it produces. I agree with Allen about the watermark, it's worth spending time on creating a classy signature or logo, it should be a seal of quality rather than detracting from a picture.
Hi , Yes I would say it is better , You have much better foreground interest , with the low light angle leaving shadows in the sand adding to the texture / feel of the photo , Also the boom on the yacht is now visable ( lost in the first image ) Less cluttered shy and more golden glow across the photo . I like this one ( Glad you removed the signature its no longer distracting my eye )
A lot better than the first one with the exception of the rock (?) far right of the image. It keeps drawing the (my) eye.
Yes the second one is much better. I can see Peter's pint about the rock but cropping it out would spoil the balance, cloning is an option but that depends whether you agree with it...
The main problem with 1 is its far too dark. Particularly the bit near the sun. After recovery you just might need to add brightness back with relation to the physics laws, and overall you need to watch the overall histogram, and maybe pay far less attention to not blowing out the core of the sun. I am more distracted by black but paper thin clouds there. That's why the signature is by far the brightest part and that is why everyone is looking at that to begin with.
It wouldn't be a bad image is exposed correctly, but wouldn't win you any awards either. It's OK as a lifestyle, for a client, etc.