evening light

[SmartWombat]

Do you think I should have used flash on the gate?
Or crop the gate entirely?
Or just throw it in the bin?

[Greg McCary]

I like it as is but there is something blurred, a bird? Lower left above the gate that could use cloned.

[gahspidy]

I think there is too much sky above the cloud opening. Nothing doing above it.If you were to use flash, i would say it would have to be off camera and from a side to bring the fg out a bit but not look like it was flash. anything on camera is not going to work convincingly. Reducing exposure so that the cloud and light rays are more dramatic and lighting the fg with a bit of off camera flash might have done the trick here.
I don't think you have anything here as it is.

[MB1]

Overall I think the image is too dark and may not be salvagable.

OTOH perhaps a crop from the top and left to get the brightest part of the image further away from the center of the frame.

[Frog]

On my monitor it is too dark and I can barely make out the gate so, yes, I think, flash would have helped.