DSC_7195

Recently got back from the Grand Canyon and would like to learn how to

improve. This was my first time taking landscape pictures and I am looking for

feedback for improving both by camera technique and editing skills.

All suggestions would be appreciated. And please be brutally honest.

There are several issues within your scene that hurts your composition.

1-All those people make your picture more of a snap shot then a photograph.  You can remove them in post production. 

2- You have divided the photo in half, rather then working with the 1/3 rule, which would greatly help your composition. 

3-The picture is under exposed. Resulting in a rather flat sky, off color of the foreground rocks, and all the trees in deep shadows. 

 Here's a re-edit working with a JPEG rather then a RAW image. So I'm limited to what I can do.

Joel

http://www.flickr.com/photos/79581466@N08/8020901049/

My main issue is the lack of contrast (and hence weak color) in the sky and distant slopes.  You can work on this with various tool; some of my favorites are from Nik Software (Viveza, Color Efex Pro).  Even though the "rules" say avoid 50:50 splits, that doesn't bother me so much here because you have a nicely composed lower half and good clouds in the sky (that simply need more work).  Whether or not to include the people is a personal decision; that could have been one of your reasons for doing this particular photo.