Interesting. It must be one of those things that only photo nerds will appreciate. As a mere mortal, my first reaction was, "what a total waste of space of a half of the picture on nothing but the sky". I even covered the top half with my hand and the picture looked much better.

But what do I know, to the experts it is a 'nice use of the "rule of thirds"'

That is true. The gradient is nice.

PS
I have a similar example from some years back. The company I was working for at the time was rebranding and the head of marketing did a presentation on the new features. One of them was widening the spaces between the letters in the company logo. His justification was that it conveyed the idea that we are more "open".

My reaction? A complete BS. First of all, I would not have even noticed unless I saw the two logos side by side and second - wider spaces = more open? Really? It may possibly mean something to other marketing directors or typographical buffs who eat and breathe this stuff but outside their small bubble, no one really cares.

I asked a few colleagues who also attended that presentation and all their reactions were exactly the same as mine