Wow!
You’ve done a great job with this assignment. You’ve accomplished, not only the technical elements of the assignment, but you’ve also carried forward some of the design elements discussed in previous lectures. Great work.
Your first image of hard lighting is great. Hard lighting always casts sharper shadows with clearly defined edges. As the light becomes softer so do the edges of the shadows. This image is composed very well. It’s full of texture, color simplicity, negative space and it has great informal balance.
The only issue I see with it is that it has one small area that is completely blown out. This is a common problem with any composition that uses harsh, direct lighting. You risk overexposing certain parts of your composition in an attempt to find compromised exposure levels. It’s not always a bad thing, and in many cases it’s unavoidable. It’s a very common issue and we’ve written about the subject (know as dynamic range) on our blog here:
http://photographyicon.com/blog/2008/11/26/digital-cameras-latitude-dynamic-range/
Please read the post above as it’s incredibly important to know about.
Your second image is spectacular. You’ve use a strong sense of atmosphere as one of your primary design elements.
The only thing I find slightly distracting about this composition is your amputation choice on the left side of the frame. I’m not sure why you didn’t include the entire house? Your amputation point isn’t terrible. In fact, if it’s because you were trying to hide something on that side of the frame then it’s well thought out. The inclusion of the house is also important to help incorporate a new color and to help show a sense of depth. However, I find myself wanting to see the isolation of the house amongst the scenery. I think you could have exaggerated that sense of isolation by including the entire object.
What you’ve done isn’t wrong; I just want you to think about alternative compositional strategies.
Overall, great work!