Critique Please

[dfwnoff]

 

[tirediron]

Just a general admin point to begin: Images for critique should be posted in the appropriate gallery (I've moved these for you). The Beginner's Forum is for questions relating to photography rather than image posting (unless you have a beginner question about an image).

With respect to this and the other thread you posted, my overall feeling is that you're trying too hard to be artistic with your work. Artistic is fine, but wait until you've nailed the basics of focus, exposure and composition first.

 

[dfwnoff]

Thank you for moving my posts. I think my picture with the holding hands had good focus and composition, but I am by far not a professional at this either. The lantern turned out blurry, but I think that may be because I wasn't really stopping to completely focus (family day at the zoo and it was packed). I like having the fence in focus with the eagle in the background, what would you have suggested for this pic?

 

[Bryston3bsst]

I like having the fence in focus with the eagle in the background, what would you have suggested for this pic?

So your subject here is the fence and not the eagle? Well, if that's the case you did an excellent job.

Then the story I get from this photo is how sad it is to have this beautiful bird locked up in a prison. Is that kind of what you were going for?

In the hand holding picture it looks like your focus point is the seam on the shorts just above the hands. Just some more practice is all.