Pattaya by Night

[Henry Wilt]

This is a view of Pattaya beach at night looking down from a vantage point about 100-150 metres up. It's one of my 1st attempts at long exposure shots and I'm not sure about it now. I would love your opinion on whether this crop works or not and whether you think it is just too dark. Any tips on how to improve it and any future shots would of course be gratefully received.
Thanks for looking.

P.S. Can anybody tell me where that border has come from? Is that from Flickr?



EXIF:
Camera: Canon 500D,
Lens: Canon EF-50mm f/1.8 II
ISO: 100
Exposure: 13.0 sec. @ f/16

[junglebear]

Technically it's a decent shot, if a little dark in the bottom half. I like the curve of starry lights in the top left. However, there doesn't really seem to be any point of interest, so the shot fails to draw me in really. Normally for a shot like this to work I'd want to see something dominating the horizon or waterfront in addition to all the details.

[Henry Wilt]

Thanks for the comments Joe.
I understand what you mean about no point of interest, it was one of the things I was trying to achieve with the crop. Where I took the picture from it looked a great view but really hasn't worked out too well in the shot. For some reason I have lost all the vivid colours from the lights from just behind the building in the foreground which I think would have helped the shot a great deal. I know I have a lot of work to do to improve the composition of my shots and I hope this one will help the process.