Composition and Aesthetics

I have been taking photos for years. All or most of my work has been an experiment in laziness. When I say this I mean I avoided understanding the technical side of things. I did not study the work of others and I never took the time to pick up a manual for any of my cameras or editing programs. I wasted many many many hours, maybe days, of my life trying to "learn" photography just by tinkering until something worked, me having no idea why it worked our how I could recreate it. If not for digital photography I would be in the poor house from just the wasted film alone or would likely have never pursued it.

In looking up composition and aesthetics I sought out the huge library of photos I have already and I tried to find examples of things I have done in the past by instinct. I believe that anyone on the planet can hit these points just by having human eyes. I think we are able to naturally frame a shot if we are paying attention to what our eyes are telling us.

These of course are not my photos for grading and I am not trying to submit them for grading. I went on a trip to New York yesturday and took the rest of my assignment photos during that trip. I hope they turned out. Going to look at all my pictures from the week tonight. The photos I am sharing here are merely meant to be a part of my blog post, an experiment to see what came to me naturally in terms of my past picture taking.

I used this neat and simple site to see if I was hitting any of these points in the past. I shot most of these old photos on my little Canon Elph.

http://photo.tutsplus.com/articles/photography-fundamentals-articles/14-composition-technique-that-will-instantly-improve-your-photos/

In reading about Composition and Aesthetics I visited quite a few sites and read a few article and while photography is art and very subjective there are some pretty good rules you can follow that will help you improve your stuff. After reading up on it I have a better understanding of why some photos seemed to work and others did not.

Per the web link I provided, what rules do you think apply to any of these photos. In what ways was I successful and what would you have done differently from a technical perspective?