If critique you want, I'll give some of my opinions. A photographer for 8 years, I'll be more honest than I'll be nice, so please keep that in mind.
In Bloom: I get the idea of focusing on just the petals and the flower itself, but there is just a little too much wasted space. A little lower aperture and perhaps a rotated camera and/or different angle to capture the bloom without the distracting branch behind it. White balance looks well, but highlights are just a tiny, tiny bit blasted. One thing that does bother me is that the camera focused on the highlights, and ignored your midtones, hence giving an out of focus center. Overall, a good picture.
Peace and Quiet: The concept of repetition is captured, however, where does the picture lead the viewer? Yep, the middle of the picture. Bad. The in focus background is slightly distracting and the highlights are scary there resulting from a picture captured in a 200 ISO area. That part could have been cropped from the image easily and would improve the concept of "peace and quiet" on a country-style front porch.
Some of the animal models used in your pictures are half & half: some show enthusiasm and emotion, while the other half just look like ordinary pictures. I understand everyone has different tastes and enjoys other works than others, but I know a few other photographers that would give props to some of these, and claim "inspire to improve" to others.
Close Up is a good example ( with the exception of the model's ear being cropped at the top >:U ) and so is
Nyah (levels need slight tweaking and we experience character cropping again... XD ). Portrait photography is difficult to do- especially without the right environment/studio set up, but for what you have available is so-so acceptable.
As for the pictures experimenting with shutter speed, they are pretty fun to play with, but to many they will eventually grow old. Not to sound incredibly negative, but in my honest opinion as a photographer I really dislike the use of slow shutter speeds unless the pictures are used in a sort of funky collage or some rave party, et cetera
or for city landscapes or for night shots that need some excitement- but thats what a starburst lens filter assists with. Though I assume that you do not have access to every piece of equipment required to take that good-taste shot.
A strong conclusion is that I will give you credit that you are steered the right path there. Keep it up, strive to improve, and good luck. We need more photographers out there; our generation is slowly dying out.
Edit: I completely ignored the hawk picture for a reason I do not know. Good focusing and good thirds technique, but (yep, and here comes
unconstructive criticism)
too much wasted space! Arg! It would have made a beautiful picture with the rising sun/waning sun, but the camera should have been rotated to portrait style, not landscape. The branch is distracting from the picture, but that can't really be helped unless you are in a tree level to the hawk, or hanging out a second story window. Even if you didn't have time to turn your camera, cropping the excess area out in PhotoShop, GIMP, Paint, et cetera would have given this picture astounding quality. Thumbs up, but next time just please get more of your subject in the picture... it would be wonderful- and I don't say that all too much either.
(c)Bastet
