How would you make this Pop?

I took this photo today with a bright sun behind the statue. I've done a slight crop and a little PP, but I am not satisfied with it. What would you have done differently, either when taking the shot or PP that would make a difference. thanks in advance for your help.
Will

IMAGE LINK: http://www.flickr.com …/30060171@N03/8​107085727/

if you shot this in RAW, take two exposures -- one exposing for the statue and one exposing for the sky -- blend to taste.

-MasterChief- wrote in post #15148229
if you shot this in RAW, take two exposures -- one exposing for the statue and one exposing for the sky -- blend to taste.

thanks...I'm going to give it a try

Maybe trying setting exposure on a more darker area like the bottom of statue and recomposing and taking the shot.

Zoom it in lcd to see if its what you like , and go from there adjusting exposure.

Make a virtual copy in lightroom and make the necessary adjustments to what will be the foreground and background then blend them together. Heres a quick try but it works for me every time in this situation.

Please explain blending

Tragic_Golfer wrote in post #15149019
Please explain blending

After adjusting the foreground and background to taste hold down shift and select both, left click and choose " edit in photoshop " both will open in photoshop.

Drag the foreground pic on top of the back ground pic then use the drop down tab to chose blending modes. Using blending modes and the opacity slider for the top layer will give lots of options and results.

If the blending technique does not work for you mask out the foreground interest revealing the background. Can be done in many many ways either with the quick selection tool, magic wand tool, channel selection, background eraser tool, normal eraser or a combination of all.

Thank you

thanks for all of the help, I'm working on blending now. BHBEY39- thanks for taking the time to edit the photo- looks great!

Here's my try....

IMAGE LINK: http://www.flickr.com …/30060171@N03/8​108668770/

And I would say your try was a success! Nice shot.

Here's my go at it.