Early Morning after the Snow Storm

Taken in the morning as the sun was coming up from behind the trees. I love my back yard! Any suggestions appreciated

Wow, looks lilke you have an amazing back yard! A couple of comments, there is noticable lens flare on the left which catches the eye off the back. My view then goes to the bright sun, then I notice far left tree top is clipped off. I think I may have tried a different angle to try to prevent the direct light causing the flare, as well as not clipping the tree. This may also help with a more consistent contrast across the image. I like the contrast in the lower left third of the frame.

Suggestion, Keep the snow to yourself (just kidding)

I see the effect your going for here. You're trying to show the sun glaring through the trees. Not a bad shot, but I would have to agree with Bushidojs. Try a different angle, try to hide that sun a little more behind the trees, it going to come through, defuse it a little more. The tree on the left falls into the area of the rule of thirds and your eyes should be drawn the that first, but the sun also falls into another area of the rules of thirds, and because it is so bright "My" eyes are drawn to the sun before the tree. If you don't know about the rule of thirds look it up on the web. Just remember not every shot HAS to apply the rule of thirds. I recently learned the rule of thirds and because of it my photos are turning out much better for me when I apply the rule.

jmass, usually lens flair has to do more with the lens quality, its settings and the camera settings. Changing shooting angle can help. If you would please give us the Exif data for the shot. That's all the camera settings, lens settings, type of lens and camera model. That will tell us a lot about the shot and how it was taken. It's a good shot I like the blue cast to the snow and trees which imparts a cold feeling in contrast to the bright fire ball of the sun. The flair can be mostly eliminated in post processing. I agree with not clipping off the tree top. Another thought you might want to try next time is to take a vertical format shot along with the horizontal. All the trees present vertical lines and a vertical format composition shot might work out well. Another method you can use on a sun rise like this is to use a neutral density filter, something on the order of three stops, to take out some of the glair. That will have the effect of making the sun more of a round ball and give it, and the sky, more color. Overall it's a good shot, one that is worth doing again on subsequent day.

I definitely think this is a shot worthy of revisiting with the above advice. Lots of potential, and this is a nice capture.
Keep up the good work, jmaas!

Thank you all for your suggestions, they are verymuch appreciated. I will try again with the new snow i'm sure we will be getting. I'll send you some AxeMan, Just kidding.

This is very constructive criticisms. I'll try to post my own pics soon. Hope you guys will be kind to me too. Cheers!