Backyard Birdhouse in Fall

C&C wanted for this photo. I shot it yesterday afternoon in my back yard. I used a 2'x3' fotodiox diffuser panel to soften the harsh sun light. I also tried to keep the rule-of-thirds in mind for composition. What do you all think?

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The full-sized photo is tack-sharp. For some reason it doesn't seem to be online.

my eye is drawn towards the hole, so the rule of thirds seems a little off to me

i would have framed it very slightly differently with the blue lines. notice the hole is lined up with the bottom third (blue), instead of slightly above the red line

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I think you did quite well in every respect, except interest. A bird would have improved upon that, greatly.

Your treatment for softening the harsh sunlight was quite effective.

Very nice!

I agree, it does lack the interest.

If the bird box would have had sharper focus to capture a lot of texture, the rule of thirds wouldn't have been so important.