This is a great example for this assignment. Both photographs showcase perfectly what was asked of you. The photograph with the dog is well composed and you’ve used an ideal shutter speed to highlight the dog’s movement while maintaining the clarity of the rest of the dog’s body. At the same time you’ve managed to capture this shot with great exposure levels.
Your second photograph of the flower is great because your shallow depth of field isolates your main area of interest while at the same time providing background context. You’ve done a great job on both of these photographs.
There are many artistic highlights to both of these photographs. The photograph of the flower is incredibly well composed. This seems be second nature to you. Although I feel its balance is a little formal (symmetrical and balanced) I like your use of depth by including a foreground object a main object in the mid-ground and a background. It makes the photograph more dramatic and interesting to look at. The color simplification and control is also incredible. It’s a very pleasing to look at photograph.
The dog picture is also very well composed. Again, you have great depth by using the dog’s face as the foreground and the tail as the background. Although these two objects are not very far apart, because of your framing the dog’s body and proportions seem to take up different “depths”. In other words, your perspective and lens provide a clear foreground, mid-ground and background and you avoided allowing this picture to look “flat” or boring. Well done.
My only concern with this photograph is that you’ve included part of a piece of furniture in the top left corner. It’s hard to tell what this is and it appears a little distracting. Be careful of amputating objects around the 4 walls of your photograph. The carpet provides a nice textured background and it would have been interesting to see it surround the dog fully rather than having secondary objects intrude into your frame. It’s not wrong what you’ve done, I just want you to be aware that you did it and try experimenting with simplification around the edges of your photograph. This photograph would have lent itself very well to that style of composition. It might have also been interesting to move closer to the dog so your foreground is more pronounced. I think it would have made it a bit more dramatic. Those are just a couple of ideas for next time!
Great assignment. Keep up the good work!