My first post

Hello there. I have been lurking around for a while but I am now getting the courage to post one of my pics. I would love any and all advice about how to improve my photos. I am new to the hobby.

Thanks,

Lorrie

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First, welcome to the forum. Now for the CC:
THis is the classic "snapshot" type picture. Centered and nothing "pops" out at you or catches your eye. The leaves in the foreground are a little distracting and the colors are dull. The fence is distracting to me also. The picture is very busy leaving me with nothing really to focus in on. Basically, this picture says, "Hey aunt Betty, I went to the zoo today and saw some flamingos." Use a post processing tool to bring out the colors, use the ruie of thirds to compose the photograph and try to convey a message to your viewers. What you do have is the love of photograpy and the willingness to improve, the rest you can learn. Hope this helps.

PS: If you don't want me to edit your pic then I'll remove it, but I took a shot at trying to show you what I was trying to say. If you do want to allow people to edit your pics, just set the allow edit flad in your profile to true.

Welcome to the forum!
You sure have some interesting subject matter.
I think your shutter speed was a little slow for the 100mm focal length. Don't be afraid to boost your ISO a little to get a higher shutter speed. A lot of people try to really get their speed up for birds.
Nice colors. I love flamingos...thanks for posting the shot.

Here is a look at what I am talking about. Your picture was kind of grainy, but I did what I could to isolate a subject and make it stand out a little.

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Thank you for the comments. I know the picture is not great but I figured the only way to learn is to post and get feedback as to what I am doing wrong. I don't want to take "snapshot " pictures- I want to take great pictures.
As I look at the photo after reading your comments I see evrything you are saying. The colors are flat and it really is not interesting.
Now I have a dumb question- how do you know my focal length ?

Thanks again.

It's in your EXIF data. You used F/8, 100mm, Canon Rebel xti, 1/80 of a sec, your flash fired, you had red eye reduction on, used a pattern meetering mode, took it on March 23rd, at around 6:20 if I am reading it right. etc.