Sunspot

Specs:
Taken along Ottawa River near Kitchisippi Point (Ottawa)
40D
17-40L @ 17mm & f16
ISO 100
5 exposures blended manually in CS5
3 for DOF in the FG and MG (thumb over sun in 2 for flare control)
2 for sky
still using TK's magic

Hi Everyone.

Back at it after a bit of a haitus. I moved far away from the mountains, into the city life, the daily grind, and in doing so lost any interest in photography for a while. It was the mountains that sparked my passion, and are/were the primary focus of my work. So in my frustration with having to leave them (for now) I found lots of nice excuses as to why I should 'move on' from photography, most notably being the fact that I can't afford it. Photography is like golf I told myself, for people with lots of money and time on their hands. How can I keep up when your gear cost more than I may make in 5 or 10 years? Where do I find time to devote to my art, when all I do is work? Needless to say I was in no mood to take pictures.

Well we all know that is a HUGE load of BS and I eventually came to my senses. I had felt sorry for myself long enough, I had to get out and take some pictures. Sure, it's a bit frustrating that a new camera comes out every week and everyone and their mom has one and I'm still shooting my taped up clunker with no hope of an upgrade anytime soon. Heck if it finally dies I'm done indeffinately. It's frustrating that I can't imagine ever being able to afford the lenses able to acheive the results I long for, or go to the places I dream of photographing.
But hey, thats life, I'd like to fly to the moon to, I'll get over it.
It's about doing what you can with what you have, and only being worried about what others are doing insofar as it relates to imrpoving yourself. Yeah.
So with all that being said, I would like to offer up one of my recent photos for always helpful and much appreciated critque. I've come to find Photoshops is not like riding a bike. A few months off and I'm completely lost. So any help I can get processing wise is like gold to me.
With this I'm particularily unsure about the sun. Just looks kinda fake, but thats pretty much how it was out of the camera (shape wise). Also the overall colour, had a hard time with the WB.

As always I appreciate any comments I get. This website is a great resource packed with fantastic people. I hope to step it up a bit this time around and be more involved. I will be working to get my comment/post ratio up asap!

Thanks everybody.