Start of a beautiful day.

Early morning shot with the sun partially coming through from the left.

This is one of the few times, to be honest, that I’m really happy with the end-result of my digital photography endeavours. I seem to slowly get the hang of, mainly darktable.

I’m not there yet, that’s for sure and that is also the reason why I’m posting this one here: I like to know your opinion. If you have critique please tell. My feelings might get hurt in the process, but I’m here to learn. So pointers and general advise are welcome!

Post-processing done with darktable 3.0.2

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I’m no expert…
I really like the colours.
As a record of what you experienced it’s probably very good.
For others, it probably would benefit from a definite subject. Imagine if there was a horse fairly prominent.
The fence leads me into the distance but then I’m blocked in by trees.
Hope this is some use!

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Very nice colour and tone, neat composition, looks a pretty place. Is quite blurry viewed 100%, but is not such an issue viewed smaller. Not sure if this was possible but to capture the rugged beauty of nature I would have preferred it without the fence. So long as the fence is there I am wondering why. What is it trying to tell us? What is the purpose? So I agree with @RawConvert, that it would probably be improved by a fore/midground subject like an animal, or something that might have given the fence some meaning.

@RawConvert and @Soupy: Thanks for your replies. It gives me pause to think about this shot, why I took it and how I edited it.

Before I start explaining (defending?) what I saw that morning and why I composed it the way I did: If the photographer/editor needs to explain how or what than s/he did something “wrong” (very experimental stuff notwithstanding).

I was focused on another shot and, turning to the right and down to have a shaded look at a shot I took I noticed the fence and my eye followed it upwards toward the nicely golden lit part in the middle (the red part) and especially the willow somewhat to the right.

I tried a few different approaches on framing this shot but I kept coming back to the lines leading up (the yellow lines) to my main subject and the roughly 1/6, 2/6 and 3/6 horizontal division (purple lines).

I personally think that an animal would have been to distracting from the way this scene was lit and its general lines.

The comments make me realize that I need to emphasize the important parts more in post. I did try to make those parts pop but did not like it (too unnatural looking, but I might be to cautious/hesitant).

I’m definitely going to try a few more edits and see if I can make a better version based on the comments thus far and those that are hopefully still to come.