Give me your best critisism

I have had my 400d for about a week now and would love some help on what I am doing right and what I am doing wrong. Be honest I can take it!

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I see what your trying to do with the 2nd picture. When going fo that type of shot it works best if you get the whole tree in the picture. The first one I dont like but I am not really sure why. I guess the biggest part is I am not sure what the subject is and the out of focus stuff in the foreground bugs me. There is some potential for some really great pics there if you get the opportunity take some more pics around that area.

#1 - Why is the foreground out of focus? It would probably be worth the trouble to learn about hyperfocal distance.

Is the truck your subject of interest? - it certainly draws the eye to the exclusion of all else. The shadow detail on the barn siding is so weak as to be lost and does not separate from the roof.

This is one of those examples, as evidenced by the clipped shadow detail, where Merge to HDR is useful to get the large dynamic range of tones into the limited range of the RGB world of 24 bits.

I would have used a smaller aperture to get the foreground in focus along with everything else to infinity. I would also have chosen a perspective that did not include the truck cab - it just swamps everything else with its glaring white.

Unfortunately the sky isn't helping either - bald and featureless.

#2 is much nicer - good composition and fairly interesting sky . The tree is nicely silhouetted, but the foreground mass of ground is deep in the shadow and very uninteresting. If you shot in RAW you would be able to recover the blown out highlights in the sky without any trouble. Even as it is it makes for a very decent print.

Congratulations and thanks for sharing.

I like the concept of the first one, but I feel that the 'blown out ' sky and busy fence line is just too distracting. I did a shot that is very similar but shot it from a higher angle in order to not interfere with the subject - as in my case, the barn.

I think the reason Mgw189 may not bee fond of #1 is because the barn is almost dead center of the image and it is acting on the photographers sub-conscious desire to see the rule of 3rds.

Image two is great - just needs a bit more contrast.

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Thanks guys...this is all stuff that my eye doesnt catch yet.

Hello, that last one is a good photo. The whole tree should be in the photo though, as others have suggested. The horizon is not straight neither...

Here is my go at it: