If it makes you feel any better, this was a shot that I had no real hope for, and which was only really redeemed by the power of post processing. I'm nowhere near the quality of 90% of posters on this board, but every once in a while, we all get lucky.
My thinking is, if one out of a thousand of my shots turns out to be this good, that's still one more good shot than most people will ever take in their lives. This is one of my few good ones, but it wasn't taken with any real thought given to subject, foreground or the rule of thirds. I was absolutely exhaused after the climb, and since I'd dragged the camera all the way up there I was buggered if I was going to come back down without taking a few shots. It was really just a picture to email to my girl at work, to say, "hey, look where I've been today".
So, a combination of lucky exposure and beautiful location worked for me. Keep going to cool places and taking pictures, and it'll work for you too. And after a while, I suppose, you do start to know what's worth taking pictures of and what's not. It's starting to come to me, but it's come via an awful lot of worthless exposures.
