Fish with stormy sunset

If the title made you curious, imagine what I thought when I came to the beach unsure of what I might see (doubting if I would even get a sunset), and found this. The tide was high and all the other interesting features were gone, so I was automatically attracted. My critique is that I believe I could have done better with less issues from my well used ND filter (preparing to get new soon..). I want the colors to be better on the second one, affected by the longer exposure. The first has most accurate colors.

http://i766.photobucket.com/albums/x...ps36d4fdf3.jpg

http://i766.photobucket.com/albums/x...psf450d2fe.jpg

I think the sunset may have been spectacular. You never know with these things, I think a little farther along and some of the bottoms of the clouds may have received some light. As for your foreground subject: yuck. The foreground subject really draws my attention from the sunset. Like I said the sunset may have been spectacular, but the foreground subject kind of ruins any chance of enjoyment for me. Technically, the photo is in sharp focus, I think you could have used a stronger ND filter, I find the foreground a little dark and the sky a little bright. I use a lot of HDR, and routinely underexpose by 4 stops to capture the spectacular sky, and overexpose by the same to capture the most detail I can get in the foreground.

I agree it's not the most appealing to look at for everyone, but on the other hand I was just informed by a local native elder friend of mine that design is a charm.

I also agree about the stronger ND filter. This was ND4, and I used to have a range of them until they disappeared from my last backpacking trip of the summer. I would have preferred an ND6 probably.

I used to do a lot of HDR and became very good at it, but dropped it when I got filters a year ago in interest of changing style and saving time.

It is definitely a unique composition! I would be tempted to take your image and create a couple virtual copies (if you use LR) with +2 an -2 EV and play around with some HDR processing. Bringing more light on your foreground subject is critical to make this scene work. I'm also seeing a greenish cast on the foreground, and correcting for that would be helpful.