Cich, don't let any critisism discourage you! Ever! Not even if it feels like "flak" to you (I've read your own comment in your deviantart-site...). Whenever you go into public with any work of art, you must get prepared for getting shredded to bits, I fear. For art is very individual, and some like this best and other that.
I, for example, found that your "Pine Branch" could have been one of my pictures from two years ago when no bush in our garden could start producing buds without my taking its picture. Then I began to think: hang on: all your pictures begin to look the same... but I still love nature photography, I just can't help it.
And I liked your "Strength and Integrity", and would have liked it even better if the chain had gone exactly diagonally through the photo with NO other background to be seen but the water. But that's just me... (like I said: such "critisism" is per part also highly individual).