GREAT little lead in from the nicely placed cacti. I’ve shot this same exact grouping, but without the stellar results you achieved. Like Sarah said, the left side grouping is a bit close to the edge of the frame. But really, it’s not a deal breaker.
As an educated guess, I would think you used a grad to darken the top of the frame or went through and highlighted each grouping of barrel cacti… Which is a great idea in a case where you don’t have leading lines to lead the viewer through the image, so you use strategic elements to do the job. But in this case, I would have done so slightly differently.
Here the highlights in the cacti are brighter than (essentially) anything else in the frame… even the bright highlights of light in the background. Personally, I would have made the entire foreground and midground 1-2 stops darker, then highlighted the cacti after. This makes the highlighted cacti stand out very well against the dark surroundings while not needing to be brighter than the background highlights.
I hope that makes sense. If it doesn’t, just call more a moron and move on. Great shot!