Great first assignment. Thank you for submitting this.
Your first image contains a few of the most common mistakes that photographs make. It’s important to draw your attention to them so you can word towards avoiding these problems in the future.
For starters, you have a night stand, a bed pillow and a wall outlet that have all been “amputated” (i.e. cut off) by 1 of the 4 walls of your photograph. It’s important that you pay special attention to the area around the 4 walls of the photograph and ensure that all amputation are strategic and look intentional (because it can’t always be avoided). In this case you need to ask yourself the question “does the wall outlet help me enhance my composition / story?”, or “does it provide important context”. If the answer is no try repositioning yourself to get rid of that object. If they answer is “yes” then don’t just include part of the object, include the entire thing.
Your second object is much more focused. A huge improvement. The main photographic elements in this photograph are movement and shape. The rounded lines of this photograph help create a consistency in shape and therefore help simplify the photograph and make it easy to look at. It’s not distracting and your focus is very clear.
It’s important tot realize however, that these photographic elements can be found in wider scenes. As you progress in this course try to look for similar ideas in the larger world. For example, look for patterns, shapes, repetitive movement etc. Composing larger scenes is not always easy, but you’ll soon start to feel limited if you stick with only close up or macro photography.
Overall, great work with this assignment!