This was a fairly rare view from our house high on a hill in VT. It almost didn’t look real. These were the actual colors. Nature is a very magical thing!
I would like to know if playing with the light/color or cropping in some way would improve it.
Is this a composite: No
You are making me jealous, I wish that I had this view from my backyard !!!
This is a great example of “storm light”, the directional light that can appear through gaps in the clouds, creating spotlit areas and deep shadows. That’s why the colors and light here look so intense. I think you composition works very well, it feels nicely balanced. You have a number of interesting layers in the scene, and these layers are further accentuated by the alternating bands of light and shadow.
There are a couple technical suggestions I’d make. First the image looks a bit soft, you needed to use a faster shutter speed and/or a tripod to avoid camera shake. This sort of looks like it might have been hand held. And in periods of changing weather like this, wind is often a factor too creating subject movement. Also the sky looks a bit noisy, probably due to the ISO you used. You might try runnign some more noise reduction on just the sky.
But this this a beautiful moment in nature, thank you for sharing it with us.
