I was given this beautiful shot to critique... Well I do not know where to begin. You scored very well (81'st)but lets see if I can recommend some things that might help this to score better.
1st thing that I see is the heavy reflection in the center and it is a bit distracting and my guess is that the voters took some points away for that.
2nd thing is that the shot don't really have anything that holds the viewers attention, shot does meet the challenge but needs something other then the nice colors to hold attention.
This shot was very creative and as you see from your comments was well done. Other then the above observations I cannot see anything more that could be improved here. By the way I really liked this shot and hope that you continue to share your creativity here...