New to SLR

[Lost One]

I'm relatively new to photography and would like your help. I've used a point and shoot camera for years now, with some good results, so I decided to step up to SLR. Here are some of the pictures I've taken, and I'd like some input on them. Thanks!

Pictures

 

[Kristi2k]

I would suggest framing your composition better, in the photos you linked, you have a nice subject but other things are getting in the way as well. Also, play with the exposure and apature settings. A good site for technique is digital-photography-school.com

 

[ElFenix]

looks like you need ~+2/3 a stop of exposure compensation. lemme guess, canon xti?

 

[ProfJohn]

Like Kristi said, composition is everything.
The house in the corner of the storm shots is distracting, take the photo with nothing in the foreground and it is much more dramatic. Or get down low and use the house to frame the left side of the shot.

On your flower shot the flower is out of focus, but the leaves are in focus. Use the manual focus on your SLR if the camera does this.

Finally, your two city shots have very distracting elements in them in the form of the light poles. If you were using the poles to frame something then it would make sense, but otherwise they are distracting.

(Take LOTS of pictures of everything, you can always delete the ones you don't like. I took 250 pictures of a group of ducks in order to get a few that I really liked.)
Framing a shot. Without the girl in the foreground this shot would be boring. With her it is interesting, at least to me.

 

[Jawo]

I agree with what ProfJohn said...especially taking lots and lots of pictures. Memory is cheap, so get lots of it and shoot frequently. I set my xti to burst and fire away.

For the storm shots....use a filter or exposure compensation to adjust for the bright sun. I think you could have had a great shot if you focused on the barn...clouds dont need to be in perfect focus, so try to frame the shot with something else.