Pete , apologies for taking it to a personal level !

My reasoning for my comment - It seems a disjointed shot , would love to see some of that golden sun coming across the pebbles and at least a hint of colour in the water , and although there is a nice lead in both the cliff on the left and the tower are fighting for my attention as i draw into the shot.

I know how tricky this is too having taken shots from here after clambering out over those dangerous slippy slugs , I have also climbed a certain tower in the distance for a shot once or twice too

Nice to see you posting on here tho pete and at least you know im being honest when i leave a comment

good attempt at light painting ! its great fun , as a tip set your camera to focus manually and then hold up the light and get the focus set first on the tripod and keep it in manual that way you will keep the shot sharp.

this is much better and shows your equipment is capable of good focussing, the composition of the shot is suffering from too much going on in the foreground and background , cropping in to feature the bird more prominently could help

as toonman says, overexposure by flash has blow the shot out , the focus is also off as there is no one particuar part of the shot crisp in focus , were you too close ? what equipment and lens are you using >

love the shot , however the contrast could do with a lift or some adjustment to the curves , its a little flat and murky , would be an excellent shot then imho

Hi Mark , nice use of the lens , and this shot is a good one , the bokeh or background is a little too noisy though and distracts a little , a quick gaussian blur layer and paint back the guitar head and fingers works a treat , have posted a mod for you , Andy