Critique On Some Fall Shots Please

The first and last images were respectively your strongest. They communicated the fall theme the best from an artistic standpoint.

The shots with a combination of trees and buildings didn't have much appeal because there was no real point to them. Ie, they didn't say anything.

On a whole, they look a bit underexposed. What mode were you shooting in on your D40?

My favorite out of the batch is the first image; cool depth of field, interesting point of view.

Definitely like the first shot the best, seems like the ladies on Flckr do as well. Very nice colors, however you are asking for critique so...IMHO the lower right of the frame containing what appears to be muck I don't think adds anything to the composition. There's no rule that says you have to keep your images in a 4:3 aspect ratio, in fact I've kind of been digging the square, 6 x 6 look lately.

I think a little cropping like this is more pleasing to the eye, but that's just my opinion.

EDIT: I did this pretty rough, but I think it makes an interesting B&W too.

I'm not heading up to NY until Thanksgiving so I'm definitely enying your ability to take images in such nice scenery.