Feedback about these 2 pictures

Anything you may think about composition, camera settings, exposure, development.. both shot in the afternoon and developed with Lightroom

So there is a lot of debate out there now that we have cameras that can handle wide dynamic range available. One of the lines of thought is just because you can extract shadow detail, doesn't mean you should. Your two images come to mind with this regard. Part of me says the darks are too heavy handed, drops to pure black way too fast. But these also remind me of some shots I took with my older canon gear back in the day, and I was super happy with them.

I guess it depends on how you were to present these. They are super high contrast - HDR-ish. Printed on metal, they would be pretty cool... as in the highlights would just jump off the page. On the other thing, on a matte surface, the contrast might not work as well.

If it were me, today, I would look to bring back a little more detail. Just a hint, to add curiosity, detail, subtleness back in. But were nit picking here. I'ld be happy sharing them. I am there are perfectionist who could find more issues. That isn't me. Im more a big picture guy, than a pixel peeper.

Thanks for sharing

Personal taste I think, but the contrast is high for me, especially the second one. Mostly the shadows, not the highlights. The right side of the first one could stand to have the blacks, or shadow, raised. I might even clone out that white boat, or rock, on the shore in the first one. Those bright objects draw our eyes.

Thank you both very much for your comments. They look definitely better after reducing the blacks a bit and bringing in more detail. That's something I'll pay attention to in further developments too. Removing the boat on the right is also a good hint. The rock is unfortunately too big to remove, at least with lightroom.

My eye was drawn to the dramatic sunbeam coming through the gap between the mountains. I wonder if you really need the foreground shore. I might experiment with cropping the right side a bit.

The canal shot is a familiar setting. I don't think the time of day contributes .

In fact, changing the format to 16:10 and removing the foreground doesn't look bad at all. Thanks for the tip!

They are both lovely and you should be proud of them.
That being said, as others have intimated a quick look on the histogram reveals what was already suspected - a lot of detail lost in the shadow end.
I would ask myself this question: "What image did I intend to create when I took the shot?" Only by knowing that answer to that question can you decide whether you have achieved your ambition - if you wanted to lose detail to emphasise contrast that absolutely fine - if not then consider planning the shoot/time of day etc more carefully next time.
Personally I wouldn't edit them to try to bring out the shadow detail - I would leave as is.
Take care and stay safe.
Alan

Thank you very much for your feedback!

On the second shot, I am curious if the following edit would look good, provided you have a wider image to work with. What if you center the arched bridge in the distance and thereby remove the space to the left of the lightpost with the delivery truck?

Hey, thanks for your comment. This would be 4:3 format and cropped to leave out the truck and the lightpost. It looks indeed better (less objects inside the frame)

1/1600 • f/8 • ISO 800 for the first landscape...
Why push to 800 ISO ?

I would keep the foreground to give 3D depth to the landscape...and erase the stone on frame's left.
Regards,

It's all about the timing or time of day and of course where the light cast it's shadows etc. I can't say much about the first image, but the second one is too dark in the foreground. better lighting is needed or even a defuser to help redirect usable light. Also, until you master the lighting, Lets not over saturate the images during PP. Otherwise post the unaltered originals for a better critique