Another great example of your understanding of the technical concepts behind photography. You’re a very quick learner and a lot of these concepts seem to be intuitive to you. Again, the composition and lighting in these two shots are great.
What this assignment called for was for you to showcase your understanding of different styles of natural lighting. These two photographs showcase that understanding very well. What is most important however, is that you’re incorporating many different photographic elements into your work.
The only thing I want to bring to your attention is your focus. In the photograph of the dog is the focus is very precisely in the dog’s eye. When you are photographing people or animals this is generally your main area of focus. It helps really add an intimate feeling to the photograph and it’s often difficult to achieve because the LCD on your camera may be small and your focus may be slightly off. But if you shoot portrait photograph and the focus is on the nose rather than the eye, the photograph will appear slightly off. It will lack the power of a photograph with the focus on the eyes. But your dog photograph is fine. However, your dandelion photograph is slightly out of focus. You can’t notice it if the photograph isn’t enlarged, but by enlarging it I can’t seem to locate any one area of precise focus. There will be a time when you want to blow your photographs up larger and these small issues all of the sudden become big issues. Many cameras have an ‘expanded focus” feature that allow you to temporarily zoom in to check the precision and accuracy of your focus without loosing your current framing or settings.
This issue could have also been caused by camera shake in which case a tripod or a quicker shutter speed could have helped fix the problem. I bring this issue up because although the error may seem small, it’s the sum of these small details which make a photographer turn from good to great.
Other than that… great work!