One of the most important elements of landscape photography is the leading element. It’s that one aspect of the image that pulls the viewer right into the frame. On one of my recent tours to Good Harbor Beach we were faced with a very low tide which gave us some very cool mounds of sand created by the tide. This added to the visual aspects of this image by also giving it some texture. The curving structure of the rivulets of sand leading up to the rising sun pulls the viewer into the image.
I shot this in both horizontal and vertical but the vertical to me is much better. It gives the image more depth.
The sun star is much better in this image because the sun is lower, but I still like the vertical even if it does have some sun flare from the filter as the sun was higher.