Natural Light: Week 3

Wow, the Natural Light course from Brooke Snow is almost over - it is hard for me to believe as I am really loving the exercises. Now I am not saying they are easy but each assignment has made me stop and pause before I press the button...so that is a good thing.

This week we were challenged to capture an image using contrasting light that draws attention to the subject. I was rather fascinated by the discussion on sun bursts and wanted to give that a try. Did I succeed? I don't know. The image below is close to what I wanted but not quite...and I had not a clue on how to edit it so left it as is other than resizing it for the web. Any tips you can give me to edit such image would be greatly appreciated!

So here is the image and I know it is a big no-no to post 2 images but here is my reasoning. Compositionally, I like this image better from a compositional point of view...and I like the drama of the sky but I like the spiky sun rays of the second image better!

While I love the spikey sun rays of this image better, I do not like the sun to be in the dead centre of my image and I could see the power pole in the back. Yes I was trying to be careful about composing my shot but if truth be told I felt myself going blind by shooting directly into the sun even though I was pushing some button that limits the light into my lens! And, I suppose I could have cropped the image but then I wondered if the image was too dark so I found myself in a bit of a conundrum! 

Anyways I am keen to hear your feedback this week as I wasn't very happy with my results this week...and Sarah, I am deeply sorry for your loss...you are in my thoughts and prayers.