Some very much beginners shots, advice appreciated.

[Streeteh]

Hi guys, i've received my very own DSLR, the first SLR i've ever owned no less, for Christmas. I've dabbled with my dads middle-end film SLR in the past but never really had a chance to get stuck in and play. Naturally over the past two days i've played extensively, taken many terrible photos, learnt little but had a lot of fun in the process. I've picked a couple of the very few keepers out of the pack and was wondering if anyone could give any advice as to how to improve on my technique or how to improve these existing shots.

Nothing has been done to modify them in any way other than converted to JPEG and shrunk a little for web usage. I decided to shoot them in raw, which i imagine is overkill for a beginner such as myself, but i hate JPEG compression artefacts and i can easily convert them when i need to. The album can be found at:

http://s967.photobucket.com/albums/ae155/streeteh/

Here's a sample, i know it's cliche but we've all got to start somewhere!



For those that are curious, it's a Sony A230, very mediocre compared to the kit many of you have i'm sure but i'm incredibly pleased with it. All photos were taken with the stock lens, i've also inherited a old 300mm sigma lens which i haven't had a chance to really get to grips with yet.

[EDIT] Bah, the background of the photo has been decimated somewhere in the conversion/uploading process but you get the point. The background was far less messy in the original.