Hi Josh,
The big secret to creating a good photograph is being able to distil what is important in the photograph for you. This means not only including what you feel is important but actively excluding the elements that might otherwise be considered boring.
Within this photograph you have captured the sea rolling about these rocks through the use of a slow shutter speed. Now if we look at the lower half of the photograph, we can see that the effect is working well. If we look at the top half of the photograph though, not much is really happening. So here’s a question for you; why give people the opportunity to look at the top part of the photograph?
If I was making the photograph I would be inclined to ignore the horizon and simply concentrate on looking for good compositions about the rocks themselves.
By losing the horizon we can eliminate the reference point to scale within the photograph; people can look at the rocks but without the horizon line they cannot gauge whether they are larger small. As this happens the photograph takes on some magic and the viewer is more likely to become engaged by what they are seeing.
Hopefully you live near these rocks and you can go back and explore some more.
Cheers, Anthony.
Image Doctor's edited version
