A beginner's try for sunset?

[atsukohli46]

As a beginner, I would truly would like to hear the most constructive criticism possible. I Really enjoyed taking these photos, and was even more excited when I got home to view them. These were taken with a simple kodakeasyshare, as I don't have the funds to buy anice camera since I'm still fairly young. hope you like it, as this is my first post on DPS!

[flytyer57]

To me, the foregrounds in your pictures are too overpowering, especially the second pic with the weeds. My eyes can't really get past the pier or the weeds.

[Doug Sundseth]

First, please take a look at the Critique Forum Rules.

Since you're new, I'll give a couple of general critiques anyway:

I like the foreground silhouettes. Both the dock and the reeds are graphically strong enough to be the subject of photos. But neither sky is interesting enough to be a major part of your pictures.

For the dock picture, I'd crop in fairly severely from the top and left to make the dock more visually important. I'd also step forward to lose more of the bank and get a better angle on the dock. Since reflections aren't a major part of the image, I'd also pull the far bank of the lake off of the center line of the photo, probably moving it closer to the top of the frame here.

For the reeds picture, I'd try to avoid the trees in the background obscuring the silhouettes of the reeds. I'd also try not to clip the reeds at the top of the frame. I think your best bet here might be to step back, shoot from lower down, and zoom in to remove much of the background vegetation from the frame.

Since you're shooting silhouettes anyway, expose to increase the color in the sky. For both photos, I'd at least try both a lower exposure (to increase sky saturation) and a later shot (to get more interesting colors).

[bruno_tmedeiros]

Just as said before, some crop on the first photo would do the work! On the second one, definitely just a step back from the subject and that would make a huge difference, but that is just a matter of trying different perspectives on each subject