My first attempt. Opinions welcome.

[Cheap_Trick]

All I have is a fairly cheap Kodak Easy Share Z950. 12 Megapixel so it does the job of taking family pictures. At a recent family gathering near Winchester, KS I took these while snapping kids at play.

Here's my favorite (it's currently my desktop):



This one was taken moments before:



I was playing around with the settings:



I took this one at The Keeper of the Plains in downtown Wichita:



And I took this one with my cell phone. It's outside The Donut Whole in Wichita. (great gourmet donuts):

[Speck Tater]

1. Number 1 and number 3 are my favorites.

In number one the sky is more interesting that in number two, and the presence of the car adds interest and gives scale to the image. Very often an otherwise boring image is brought to life by the presence of something more personal that we can relate to. A human figure off in the distance, a car on the road, a face peeking out of a window, etc.

[ManiacJoe]

2. Good exposure and sky color in the first one.

The bummer is the SUV with its lights on.
The second one can be adjusted to get almost the same results without the SUV.

[Speck Tater]

3. Hehe. A good example of "personal taste"

You think the car spoils the shot, I think the car makes the shot. Go figure!

[ManiacJoe]

9. Art is like that!

[Mz Pip]

4. #2

I like the composition of the second one very much.

The lantern would be more interesting to me if the lantern were not dead center.

[Adsos Letter]

5. #1 & #2

I can really feel the evening coming on in #1; my favorite time of day, so that may be part of why I like it.

There is some nice balance going on in the composition of #2.

I agree with Mz Pip about the lantern shot.

[Cheap_Trick]

13. I love the sunset.

I like to get some blue to orange to yellow coloring, but still like the coloring in the shot. The lantern shot was more just to try the low light setting to see how it turned out.

[handmade34]

6. be careful...

once you start, it takes over I like the water tower (1st one) and I am in the camp thinking the car is not necessary... some cropping with that one and the Donut rooster might be good (good backlit with the rooster)

Hope to see more of your photos here

[Celebration]

7. I like the first one, too

Either with our without the car. I think "Pass with Care" popping out like it does makes the picture. For that reason having the car in the photo is one plus, though I wish it wasn't as close to the center. Still, lovely photo, and glad you are having fun with this.

[Stevenmarc]

8. I took a look

At the manual for your camera and saw that you have a mode called HDR, what it would have done is basically taken both your picture 1&2 and combined them so you would have had the sky in 1 and the better exposed foliage of 2 in a third shot.

[Cheap_Trick]

11. Looks like I need to read the manual.

when we bought it, I just loaded the batteries and began shooting.

Thanks for doing some digging

[Mira]

10. Never will I forget the first three photos I posted here

and the welcome and the inclusiveness I found. I tenaciously hung around and I have learned a tremendous amount.
In your lineup I like the second one a lot, because the placement of the car in the first one bothers me and the second one has the wonderful repetition of the blue values in the street/sign/watertank and roof.

I like the fourth on because of the repetition of the shapes. To me taking photos is all about light, and learning to see.
The rooster is funny, I may play with that photo and crop it differently, and come back. If you don't mind.
By the way I "play" only with Picasa - I keep saying to myself I'll install lightroom 3 any day now.

Keep bringing them to us, we'll always be good for helping you look at them.



Now that I did it I see it's too bright and therefore "blown out". Maybe you can see that without the extra stuff the rooster, the "morning" feeling, and the height of it are preserved and therefore the crop makes the important aspects more prominent.

[Cheap_Trick]

12. Very cool. Thanks.

I use MAGIX Photo Manager to do some editing. I did a version of this pic and made it look more like sunset. I was rather shocked at the detail for a 3.2mp cellphone camera.

[Speck Tater]

15. I used Paintshop Pro for years and years.

Then I tried the trial version of Lightroom 4.

After 4 days of using the trial version I was seriously wondering how on earth I ever survived without it. Now, almost a week later, I can't even imagine life without Lightroom 4. But to really put it to good use you need to shoot RAW files. But since going from jpg to RAW a week or so ago, I would never go back to jpg. Ever.

Just my unbiased two centavos worth.

[Cheap_Trick]

14. The car in shot #1 was by accident.

By the time the shutter clicked, the car was in frame. I didn't even hear it going by. But I kinda like the stillness of the rest of the pic and the blurriness of the SUV. Gives it a feeling of motion.