You know the old adage about rules? "They were made to be broken" Who's gonna serve the warrant on you? To heck with rules. The color,composition,exposure, & everything looks fine to me. The blue water trail makes it interesting, especially if you didn't use any PS magic to get it. The PP (photo Police) aren't here. They went to bed about 2 hours ago.

Taken 9,20,2011. Used Canon SX20IS. in manual mode. ss.1/800, aperture, 5.6, iso 800. Not as sharp as I would like. I tried various settings & modes; over 40 pics taken, & this was the best I could come up with. Thinking of up grading my camera. Don't have PS., or any paid for photo editing program. It might help.

We didn't get any Cedar Waxwings this year either, although we did see some in May 2010 & 2009.I kept a note of when they came by,& it was in the middle of May both times. They were only around for a few minutes. Cardinals are here in abundance. The snow on Christmas was the first in many years.

You took the words out of my mouth.There is no perfect mortal, perfect photo, perfect anything if it isn't God's. And I too don't care for selective color. I have sent one taken on Christmas day 2010, & one taken in Jan. 2011. Gods work, not mine.

The flowers are gorgeous. Don't need the building in back though. I would crop it out as it doesn't add to the beauty of the flowers. Just my opinion though.

I prefer the full color ones. Just looks more natural. The foliage is part of the beauty of it all. A gray background is not bad though.This is one I set out for my mother e few years back. It never did much till this summer. It's a climbing Peace.

GREAT shot. Kinda makes me want to scrub his back for him. What camera & lens? what distance (feet) were you from bear/bird?

All photos are nice & I'm more than a little green with envy. I took the liberty of reducing the exposure a little on the woodpecker.It is my dream to get a bif. Maybe some day.

The seal is just too cute for words & the heron makes me want to throw my camera in the pond. Darn, I'm jealous. Would you tell me what kind of camera & lens you were using? Also, how far were you from your subjects?

Great shot,& well composed. What camera, lens, etc. were you using?

Amazing photo, & very professional. Where is this located? We didn't get to see any Waxwings this summer. We did see a flock of them last year in mid May in a cedar tree. I don't know why they didn't come back around. We are in NC.

I don't try to do much in door pics because I don't really care for that "glow" in the eyes that flash causes. But if you take in doorpics you might want to use as much natural light as possible & avoid flash. I've read about using candle light along with another source of light to produce a nice warm effect & prevent redeye equivalent in cats. I 'm going to try it & see what happens. If your cats are anything like mine it might be a good way to start a fire without the fire place. This is one of my mothers babies taken in doors. Don't you just love cats natural ability to get comfy?

You might want him turned so that the sunlight isn't directly in his eyes so that he can look up a little. Your blured background & composure is very good. Have him do something that he enjoys doing, then catch him at it.

I agree 100%. There are photo editing software that will remove freckles ( what's wrong with freckles, I'd like to know???) By the time you get through editing out all the little imperfections, you have a different person than you started out with. IMO that is a lie.

Are you using the digital zoom (anything over 36x) or only the optical zoom? I used to use the maximum zoom on my 20X until I read an article about using only optical zoom, then cropping to make subject bigger/closer. I have had a lot better image quality since I quit using digital, although sometimes it's tempting. These photos shoe both digital (over 800mm.) & optical with crop. Both taken from the same distance, 200 feet or so.