Putting my teaching glasses
Please dont take this as something personal, take this first comment as a "Socratic" argumentation and then I will enter the actual critique. Sometimes it helps to ask oneself why should this picture go into the gallery. Which are the strengths of the picture in your opinion?
I see many issues in the first picture and a couple of them on the second.
The first one has very few strengths. It is not sharp (actually looks blurry probably due to a slow shutter speed). THe background is quite intruding. Background should either complement the picture or not play a role at all. To have branches around the deer is obviously not your fault but you should consider to be more selective on which shoots worth keeping and which ones keeping AND submitting to a gallery like PPG. THe lighting is not bad but it doesnt excel either. It lacks contrast and you have a couple of hot spots on the rear part of the deer. I think that PPG allow burning in PP and I think that it would help you to solve the issue with the hot spots. Composition wise, there is a lot of extra-space that doesnt add anything to the picture. I tighter crop would help.
The second one is much better but still have a couple of issues. THe picture is sharp and the deer looking at the camera has impact. I think that the cropping on the neck is too close to the "chin" of the animal (as Rense mentioned). A little bit more of neck would be better. The background is not intrusive although some highlights make it look a little bit nervous. The other big minus is the noise. In these days and age, the noise on pictures is not well accepted. It is a matter of taste but very few people will look at it as a good thing.
Dont feel disheartened by the rejection, it is the way it goes. Take it as a reason to improve. If you are into wildlife look into ways of achieving better compositions efficiently, animals dont like to pose too much. Train to have rule of thirds and golden rule points well visualized. Usually, most of the cameras focus faster with the center point (which collides with harmonious composition) if you use that method make sure that the lens is sharp because you might want to crop the shoot. Try to avoid busy backgrounds. For wildlife it is a good idea to try to isolate your subject as much as you can (large aperture-small f number, long lenses and getting close helps). With time you will learn to include appealing background elements to your pictures in a complementary way.
Hope it helps
Glasses off.
Last edited by Not Registered; 10-23-2009 at 05:04 PM.
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