Berkeley Pier remnants

[Krusty79]

I thought I would ask for feedback on this shot. As soon as I saw this dark pier remnant, I wanted to capture it. This is more of a minimalist shot for me, so I wanted to ask everyone if the composition and subject matter works for them. I like it dark so you can't see detail in pier remnants and to keep the color in the sky.

That's the Golden Gate Bridge in the background.

20 second exposure
.6 Lee ND grad
f/10
55mm focal length
ISO 100 (I still want to call it ASA )
0 EV
No flash

[RichardTaylor]

The sky and the bridge work.
The pier doesn't for me, being just a black bob in the foreground..
Would it have been possible to shoot from a position to the right and swinging the camera too the left so there would be more of the pier (with some detail in it) that would be pointing a bit towards the bridge?

[Bruce A]

I agree with RT. The pier is the subject, yet it appears as just a dark shape with no detail. Moving your shooting postion so the pier was angled and pointing towards the bridge would be a framing improvement.

[Krusty79]

Okay, thanks for the feedback Richard and Bruce A. I have never tried to use a dark, featureless object as my subject, so I wasn't sure how it would work. I took the shot at the very end of the existing pier. They put up some vertical 4x4s or 4x6s to keep anyone from trying to get further out onto the part of the pier in my shot, so I am shooting between those vertical boards. I can only move a few feet either way, so I don't have much compositional (is that a word?) flexibility.

I did bracket the shots, so I do have some overexposed shots showing detail on the pier (there are actually a lot of birds perched on it). I haven't tried exposure blending yet, so maybe this is a good time to start.