Not sure where to go with these

[BrianA61]

I took several shots of this scene a few years ago. But, for the life of me, I can't decide how best to edit these. I like the subject matter and composition, but am having a hard time to make these pop. Any advice would be welcome.

[Manfred M]

In my view, the problem here is that the background is so bright that it overpowers your main subject. Cropping and burning down the background will help, but the light was not particularly good for this subject, so you are quite limited as to what can be done here.

[Geoff F]

I agree with toning down the background but if you want to show a little bit more than Manfred's crop try only reducing the left side slightly to end up with something like 5 x 4 ratio?

With the second image, try increasing brightness on the midtones (brownish areas) while reducing the background brightness.

[pschlute]

I would go even more dramatic in the crop and produce something like this.......

[pschlute]

or this............

[MrB]

Perhaps you might try making it a night shot:

Philip

[pschlute]

Perhaps you might try making it a night shot:

Philip

Now that I do like.

[BrianA61]

Thanks for all the suggestions. I do like the close crop as well as the "night time" shot. Very creative. I might also try the close crop but in B&W with high contrast. Or, maybe just go outside my normal comfort zone and be artistically creative and experiment a little.