Forum newbie: Some of my better (lucky) shots, I'd like your feedback please

[LagunaLab]

Shot in Laguna Beach. I was playing with reflections of the sky:

The Getty Center. I like the color of the light and the texture:

Love this guys pose. San Diego Zoo:

Obligatory sunset:

One of my luckiest shots. He heard my shutter and looked STRAIGHT into the lens. From San Diego Wild Animal Park:

 

[Rekd]

The first one seems a bit washed out and listless. The second has great geometry but the horizon is off. The gorilla "thinking" is an excellent capture, so are the sunset and the lions.

Did you do any post processing? They don't seem to pop very well and the color is not as bright as it could be, but the composition is definitely there.

Thanks for sharing.

 

[LagunaLab]

The first one seems a bit washed out and listless. The second has great geometry but the horizon is off. The gorilla "thinking" is an excellent capture, so are the sunset and the lions.

Did you do any post processing? They don't seem to pop very well and the color is not as bright as it could be, but the composition is definitely there.

Thanks for sharing.

Nope, no post processing whatsoever. It's something I haven't gotten into yet. I have been focusing (no pun intended) on composition and on finding things that are interesting to look at. Thanks for your feedback.

 

[Rekd]

Excellent! Like I said, the composition is really good. A little color enhancement here and some unsharp mask there and these images will really jump out at you. Keep at it!

 

[mom2eight]

Love the San Diego Zoo. The lion picture is great.

 

[chris182]

Nice pics...sunset is my fav, although the lion is pretty cool to. Keep at it!

 

[Bitter Jeweler]

I plunked the first two into Photoshop and just did the 'Ol Auto Levels, and BAM! the images popped.

Try it.

 

[c.cloudwalker]

Not bad at all. I like #1 and 2 best although I would crop out the sky in #2 and make it more of an abstract shot. And #1 definitely needs a bit of PP.

Get yourself GIMP. It's free and from what I keep reading here it is quite good for the price.

#3 and 4 don't do much for me but the exposures are pretty good. Composition wise (thinking of the ape here) it usually works better if the looking space is larger, meaning there should be more space in front of his eyes than in back. You could deal with it by cropping a good chunk of the empty top space and close to his back which would also get rid of the piece of the second ape.

With #5, I would do a major crop. I would basically keep just his head in portrait orientation. The main reason I don't like most zoo photos is that they look like zoo. But one of the advantage of the zoo is the ability to get somewhat closer then in the wild so they are good places to try and get good close ups.

Overall not bad at all.

Now, when do we see the not-so-lucky photos?