Heya rusty, we haven't met on here before, have we? You are new and joined while I was away on vacation. Welcome to ThePhotoForum!
Anyhow, this was an inspiring area for you to go to and test your new camera.
Now I take it you're presenting us the photos just as they came out of your camera?
You did not work on them any further by means of any software that can still change the immediate results you get? Some software on CD must have been in the camera box when you just got it, and that should at least offer you SOME means to still work on your photos.
Some look quite promising but don't grab the viewer's eye because they are so "flat", so "milky", so "hazy". Seems like (assuming you're still using your camera on AUTO?) it was mislead to overexposing the swamp pics some, while the amount of sky in your compositions of the reservoir "talked your camera into" underexposing the rest, as the camera will always look for the middle exposure, unless you, as it's user (and hopefully soon also "controller"), decide otherwise and put your settings like that.
Anyhow, about the swamp pics (I'm fascinated by swamps, so I like these, despite their little flaws), with some software that allows you to work on the contrasts, these will soon look a ton better.
The first is the best exposed of all the swamp pics by itself, only is the bridge too much in the very middle of the photo for my liking.
The second is promising, up the contrasts and it'll be better, and I like how the bridge leads in a CURVE from front to back, only nitpick about composition is that it does not lead anywhere, or rather: the WHERE it leads to is being blocked off our view by the tree.
The root IS cool, though I'm not sure the photo is all sharp. It looks a little shakey.
The reflections in the water on the wooden bridge do need more contrasts! Other than that: well spotted
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I'll skip over the reservoir pics (composition is too much so that your horizon is very in the middle of your photos...), and thus arrive at the three trees in line (I think), which is a photo I like for its compositional concept (you spotted this scene well, too). For some odd reason, this photo sports a lot of magenta colours and I can't really tell why this is so. I wonder how much stronger this cast would become if you worked on the contrasts some?
More trees in swamp now: of those two (that follow the three-trees-in-line), I prefer the second to the first, as it offers a really lovely depth to the viewer's eye. That frame was spotted well, too, although the photo as such needs post processing work in brightness and/or contrasts, too, of course, as you yourself now see, too. But I'm almost inclined to say I like that one best of all.
Next time you post, try to post fewer pics, and should it once again be as many, then number them. Helps commenting a lot, as we, the commentors, need not scroll up and down and count and re-count all the time while trying to think of something useful to say to you. OK?
Explore into post processing software and keep up the work! You seem to have got some lovely areas around you!
