1. Remember the rule of thirds.
2. Bokeh can be a powerful tool.
3. Zoom with your feet.
4. Capture the moment, don't stage it.
5. If it catches your eye, let your camera catch it.
Keep these in mind whilst you frame and compose and every picture can be a keeper.
#3 is an odd bit of advice, and #5 is just backwards:
If you're a photojournalist, then you'll definitely want to avoid "staging a moment", but otherwise, a bit of planning can take a photo the extra mile.
Don't "let your camera" do
anything for you. You should be the one in charge. Instead: when something catches your eye, figure out how best to package it within the four sides of your photo so that your viewers will 'see' it too.
The best I can say is this: avoid distractions. Everything has a place in a picture, so make sure not to include elements that distract the viewer's eye.
This is very good advice. If you don't want it in the picture, it shouldn't be there.
Boots-, I looked through some of your Flickr photos. It's a really mixed bag, but you're obviously very keen to experiment, and I get the feeling that you have the patience to improve a great deal. There are two things I suggest you start working on: lighting and composition.
Lighting. Remember that if you're shooting outdoors with available light, the very best times of day are the two 'golden hours', one just after sunrise, and the other just before sunset. That's when the sun is low and its light is passing through more atmosphere, causing the light to be a soft, golden color. This light makes shadows soft and colors more vibrant. Midday light is too harsh and blue; it will wash out colors and cause dark, distracting shadows and extremely bright highlights--a high dynamic range that will produce black and white 'holes' in your photo. The exception is when you have enough cloud cover to diffuse the sun's light (without it being so thick that everything looks dull).
If you're shooting indoors with lighting that is under your control, the same basic principles apply: avoid harsh shadows and stark highlights. Of course there will always be exceptions; if you want 'monster' lighting for a certain effect, fine, but it's usually not desirable. Also, if you're shooting indoors be aware of mismatched lights that produce odd, uncorrectable color casts.
Composition. Think of each photo as breaking down into two components: subject and setting. This basic distinction will help photos of every kind, even abstracts. A photo that is all setting and no subject will not hold the eye's interest for long. Conversely, a subject that appears without enough setting or context is likely to seem less interesting than it could otherwise. It's usually best if a photo has a single, strong subject, a place for the eye to 'park' between explorations of the frame. The subject should have enough visual weight in the frame to grab attention, but not so much that it obliterates its setting or context. Avoid having multiple subjects or having elements in the frame that compete with your subject.
There are times when you'll want to break the 'rules' of composition, but don't do that until you know what the rules are. The "Rule of Thirds" is a very useful guide, so I recommend you read up on it. Learning to make use of leading lines and layers in a photo to establish depth is also invaluable for creating successful compositions.
Lastly, if you want C&C on specific photos, post them in a thread here so that people don't have to click through to your Flickr page to see them. I recommend you post no more than three at a time so that you'll get very pointed comments about each (instead of vague generalizations about a whole lot of images).
Hope that helps.
