My first 7 months of photography (please critique!)

[Kanthaka]

I'm a beginner myself but I think these are "very nice" photos for someone who just picked this hobby up about 7 months ago. Personally, I've only had my DSLR for one week. I hope I make progress like this. Looking forward to seeing more pics from you!

 

[bmoffitt1990]

#2, #7, and #8 win it for me. Love the shadow detail in the column, like the leading lines in the railroad tracks ... but the starkness and abstraction, and contrast in #8 carry the day for me. I like it ... definitely keep shooting.

BTW ... look at #8 ... left and right sides of the image ... faint spots ... is that sensor dust?

No that was from the filter I was using. There was some water marks on it. Thank you for the feedback!

 

[bmoffitt1990]

To me, I am in with Designer. One of the things I found common to most of the photos (the railroad tracks in the snow was the exception) was the lack of composition. The locations were pretty, but the photos were to me just a travelogue. Generally the care put into the taking of the photos is easily communicated to the viewer. The one thing I noticed on all the photos is that almost every one of them is perfectly centered in the frame. There is very little variation from that format. I would like to see the OP begin exploring compositional techniques and spend more time planning the shots they take. The funny part is, they still centered the railroad tracks, but thanks to leading lines it worked in that photo. But I am not sure the OP thought of that when they took it. BTW, this is a generalization since there were SO many photos in the bunch. Since so many of the photos exhibited the same characteristics it is clear to me that this is how the OP shoots generally.

Thanks a lot for the descriptive feedback! Some of these are a travelogue. I got to travel but wasnt with someone who was into photography. I didnt want to bother them and slow them down by trying to compose great shots, so I had to do a lot of quick pointing and shooting.

These photos unfortunately do have a central composition for most (not all). I didnt know any rules when I first started, so as a result my pictures were all over the place. Then I wanted to focus on one type of composition so that I could become very familiar with it. I wanted to be able to tell when I should and shouldnt use it. Can you tell which composition I chose? lol.