Travis
It's infinitely better to have the best shot in-camera. Which means learning your camera and how it reacts is important. Post processing has it's limitations - it cannot counteract/remedy all ills. And some if not arguably all post processing also degenerates "image quality". Think about it, something as simple and innocuous as cropping. If you crop something say 50%, you have to enlarge it 100% to get the same size image. When you enlarge the image you are also enlarging the pixels so to speak - the photo won't be as sharp. Plus who wants to sit around for 30 minutes "fixing" something that could have easily been avoided to begin with? I don't have that much time on my hands. I've got tens of thousands of photos or more - add up the time it would take to post-process each one. But then again, it is fun to sometimes make something that did not exist. I've been known to spend hours in a darkroom playing around with chemicals, dodging, burning, etc.....Same thing with CS - it is fun to play around with, for me especially with B&W. For me post-processing is saved for the few that I think can really be punched up! I might do a lot of minor stuff like adjust light levels a bit, crop, add some contrast or adjust over all color when I forget to change my white balance. There's lots of things fun with post-processing - you just have to be prepared for putting the time into it.
As far as the pic goes - (I'm going to get a little icky sticky, oooey, gooey) which one expresses what you are trying to say or what are you trying to show the viewer, or what one captures the moment that you wanted to capture. There was some reason you wanted to take this picture. Something that drew you to press the shutter - what was it? Then which one conveys your vision better?
They are both fine photographs. An old bridge in either early morning or late evening light (my guess is Eastern early morning light). Can evoke a lot of emotions. As far as me, I like the further away one. I love perspective, The lines lead your eyes to something somewhat mysterious that needs discovering and to me that is powerful. AND I'm on that trail to discover the mystery! For me the other one does somewhat the same, but not as effective - its more intimate - not as mysterious. Centering is not problem. Off center would likely change the emotion - and make it a picture of a bridge - one of millions - ho hum. Sky, nothing you can do about it, unless you have a graduated ND filter or know your stuff in post-processing layers. You have a lot of darker than 18% gray that the camera is balancing with the neutral sky and the sky lost. If you exposed for the sky, likely the rest would be too dark.
