I think it would be a better picture minus the arch. My eyes keep focusing in on it. Is it by any chance the St. Louis Arch?

I disagree with koo88. The arch is a special element in the landscape and in my opinion the main subject of your photo. The strange light provided by many clouds and a bit of sunshine gives the arch an even more amazing status. Beautiful sky, it fits perfect with the steel from the arch. Good work!! Only one minus: if you just waited for a couple more seconds, the boot would have gone further up the river and wouldn't 'cross' the arch.

I appreciate the effort to give a different view of a very familiar subject, but I just don't think this composition is interesting. The Arch is neither there or not there. The area where the Arch meets the ground looks to be quite interesting, maybe explore that with the river and boat in the background.

Hmmm, maybe I don't have a prejudiced opinion about the composition of the arch becouse to me it is not familiar. I have never seen a photo of it. I don't know how the whole arch looks likes and how it could be showed diffrent.

Thanks for the comments. I thought I had captured the boat in time before it got behind the arch but all of this was rather difficult to put together since I had to shoot through thick plexi-glass with a lot of glare. I was pushing the lens up to the glass to avoid as much of the distortion as possible. Seeing the arch everyday and almost always in its entirety for photos, I wanted to capture it in the different way. I tried to use the arch to draw the eye down from the sky to the river and finally it's base.

I'm with Clyde in regards to the arch - for me, it's a big distraction. The subject here is the light - it's wonderful!!

Best,
Jon

I live near the Arch. I have seen more Arch photos than you can imagine. This one is original and shows the Arch in context. The composition is more creative than people can imagine.

If this is highly altered in post-processing, you did a nice job of not over doing it.

If there is no HDR/psuedo HDR manipulation, than you caught the light at the perfect moment with perfect exposure.

Anyway, this is one of the best Arch photos I've seen.

It's an interesting photo in the context of the Arch. It's not one of the standard views of it and the emphasis seems to be more on the surroundings than the arch itself. (Personally I find this interesting as I had no idea what the surroudings were like and did not expect what one sees on the other side of the river.)

Is it a phenomenal picture? Not quite. I am not sure what the missing ingredient is here. It would be nice if the boat were not behind the Arch. But the light really is nice. And, as I say, it's interest is in contextualizing the Arch rather than focusing on it.