Looking for some critique on my photos

Hey guys,

I'm new to photography on the net and although i've enjoyed taking pictures for years, I've only gotten serious about improving my photography over the last 10 months. I picked up a Rebel Xt just this last May and i've just created a photoblog/gallery a few days ago so i'm finally ready for some critique on how to improve my photos technically and composition wise. Any positive and negative critique is greatly appreciated.

Anyways here are a few photos to start with but the rest of the photos and info can be found at: www.notquite007.com

Thanks in advance!

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Gorgeous colours on the last one.

Number 2 blows me away. For a kit lens that is an awsome image.

#2 is amazing, quite a nice shot.. The first one is very nice as well, although it looks as if the center of focus was in the lower right-center, not on the person.. which is maybe what you intended, but it does look slightly off.

The colors on #3 just look fake to me.. oversaturated.. the sky looks unnatural, like a photo from the 70's.. but it could be my monitor too.. Either way, this is a great set of pictures!

I love both of the 1st two ! The last is way too contrasty as well as not really having a center of interest. I'm posting my version of the beach image. The main thing I wanted to fix was positioning in the presentation. I'll post a version of the water flowers later.

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Ok, here is my painting version of the water flowers. I used the Smudge Tool in Photoshop as well as the Angled Strokes filter.

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DANG the colors are insane! Nice!

Excellent shots...I must visit Denver Welcome to the XT club, you will love the camera and now is the right time to get it too.

Personally it's a great first start

Love the second photo. The isolated colors of the flower creates a very strong presence.

Two and three were great. No pop for me on the first one, dull colors.

goforphoto wrote in post #2338303
Number 2 blows me away. For a kit lens that is an awsome image.

Thanks. Honestly I was surpised at how well it came out and didn't really know how good of a picture it was for the kit lens till later on. That picture was actually the 20th or so picture that I had taken with the Rebel Xt and kit lens so I think part of it was luck!

BrandonSi wrote in post #2338406
#2 is amazing, quite a nice shot.. The first one is very nice as well, although it looks as if the center of focus was in the lower right-center, not on the person.. which is maybe what you intended, but it does look slightly off.

The colors on #3 just look fake to me.. oversaturated.. the sky looks unnatural, like a photo from the 70's.. but it could be my monitor too.. Either way, this is a great set of pictures!

Actually I tried to set the center of focus on my niece by selecting the center focus point and recomposing with it. My niece was moving around alot so I had it on AI focus and was barely able to get that shot so that's about as good as I could get it. Wish I could have gotten it right on her though!

Oh and on # 3. That was a tough photo to get. We were up hiking in the mountains north of Telluride during the fall and the lighting was pretty harsh. It was about 2 or 3 in the afternoon and the skies just had this washed out look to them. Looking back I think my only other option would to have tried to meter for the sky and then use fill flash on the trees/leaves.

But thanks for the critique as it's greatly appreciated!

D. Craig Flory wrote in post #2338769
Ok, here is my painting version of the water flowers. I used the Smudge Tool in Photoshop as well as the Angled Strokes filter.

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That's an interesting version of the picture. I might have to try that out a bit to see what it would look like by "dulling" out the sharper edges of the upturned leaves. Thanks for the your critique and redits for both pictures!

And for everyone else, thanks for your comments and critique. It's greatly appreciated!

i like them! the first one: yeah, rule of thirds looks better in my opinion. alternatively, if that was cropped from the original, you could re-crop with more sky and keep more of the rocks and depth of field.

second one: dirty leaves make it look like a real treasure you actually found, but of course in commercial work it would distract.

last one says colorado! brings back good memories.