Hey Ben,
I am really liking #1. I like unbalanced balance in the sky with the clouds in the upper left corner balancing the peak that is in the middle right. And there is some nice swirls going up in the sky along with some nice working of the light to help give depth. A really nice one. Now, if there was one thing I would do or try on #1, it would be to crop a bit off the left side so that the mountain edge doesn't start to rise back up at the saddle. For my mountain shots, I tend to try and have the edges going down so that visually the image feels complete. When it goes back up and is cut off, visually it can cause that part of the image to feel incomplete and cut off. The problem is if you do that in this one, you could lose the delicate balance between the clouds and the peak. So I would try the crop, but if it then unbalances the sky too much, I would just stay with the original composition you are displaying here.
That's a lot of words....
#2... I need to think on some more. It's nice. but it's the clouds you have there and the image feels at first glance very Right heavy. My 2nd thought is I wished you had swung the camera to the right, to get the cloud on the right over to the left side of the frame since it's billowing wave is pointing to the right. As it is, that cloud really attracts the eye visually, but it immediately points and directs the eye to the right, which is out of the frame.
Jim
