It’s well out of nesting season, and no obvious food a stake, so probably. There again, I’m pretty sure the Red Kites like gliding over those woods just to annoy the Jackdaws, so it’s all fair!

And if a Kite wants to fight, it really wants to bring its claws to bear, it’s beak is no use for pecking, so a perched kite has a problem! I suspect the magpie knows that.

The graffiti in B&W is quite interesting, and perhaps is an example of a lesser benefit of B&W, which is reducing irrelevant confusion (the greater benefit being cases of “well this photo doesn’t have much colour in it anyway, let’s make that a positive”). Multiple layers of graffiti just feels messy, this in some sense flattens the layers.

As others have said, kite is bad in B&W, locks get a different look (and perhaps lose distracting colour if you are going for “alike but different”).

All good fun!

You may indeed, that’s a fun angle and I like the increased light levels.

And just to irritate the auteur - personally, I prefer buildings taken at a slight angle to give a greater sense of depth. So in that sense, I prefer your bonus picture (and so would instead be cursing the tree within the fenced areas rather than the wire).

But if that’s arched windows in the far side of the church being framed by arched windows on this side, then I can see why you want a shot from right where you took it (or at least on a straight line in 3D space that only gets close to the ground where you were) - it adds a “not immediately spotted interesting feature” which is a good thing.

Also personal taste, but I might have tried playing with the luminance histogram (or whatever your tools call it) for the RAW format, if I had it, and brighten up the stone work without blowing out the sky.

On 1. ironically, or in some sort act of negative karma, this Sunday I was loudly abused by a lady accusing me of having taken many photos of her, and “Stop or or I’ll go to the police” - made particularly weird by the fact I deliberately avoid taking photos of people or their dogs when out doing nature photography.

I actually pre-emptively contacted the police myself, just in case any report was made and for some reason the police took it seriously.

Nice fit with nice fabric, well done.

The next step up from French seams (not that it looks like you need it here with the care you’ve taken) is felled seams - more fiddly, but you don’t end up with a loose ridge that only stays down if you press it. One downside of felled seams is that you can’t do them both seams on a sleeve or leg or something, as you are sewing a line on an opened out seam. Another is that you will need to practice quite a bit!

Many sewing machines do have an overlock stitch to finish off seams, but its not as tidy or strong as you would get with a serger.

Depends on location - my comment was prompted by remembering https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c20vlpwrzwdo It’s not happened to me personally.

It also sounds like the OP is fully aware of the issue, so great!

Positive: Interesting photo, no major technical issues I can spot.

Negatives to be aware of:

1. It seems likely at least one person in that photo would be extremely upset if a photo of them was posted on the Internet. And with rampant AI, this image may well get tagged by face recognition software somewhere.

2. You were waving either a decent phone or camera around in front of strangers, close to you, at night - I hope you were taking significant precautions against it being snatched

Wagtails love to strut :)

A shot that obviously had to be taken.

Now, I recognise that perspective was going to mess you about whatever you did, (long line, tall columns, starting close … doomed), but I suspect there’s a mild tilt in the photo, that might have been better corrected by a whole photo rotate.

I’m assuming Black&White by choice, and fair enough, I’m guessing there was little colour variation in the main subject.

Pied Wagtails are quite common in the UK, if unpredictable.

Blackbirds that go pied - pretty rare, I’ll grant, though that one (or its ancestor) has been seen around there for a few years now,

I have to admit my strap is on the camera, but with that lens the strap is more of a fall-back support, in case my hands slip or I otherwise mess up the support. It’s actually far too heavy to dangle round the neck for anything but a grip change or putting in a camera rucksack. And I walk cradling it like a baby! (strap loose about my neck) Same reason I always have the hood attached if its out of the rucksack - a safety measure in case I drop it or knock against something, not on the off-chance of flare.

From the manual of the lovely beast that is the RF200-800:

Since the lens is heavier than the camera, turn the camera when attaching or detaching the lens. Ensuring that the lens can rest safely on its own is recommended, such as first mounting it on a tripod.

I think they are a bit miffed that their partner left the tree and then a flock of … those birds … turned uo.

Be more confident in your work - those were worth my time looking at!

Never mind the UK’s Greated Spotted Woodpecker speckled, and red on head - the isn’t the best of photos but the red on the head is at the back, so…

Ah, thanks - I only ever crop post-shot, but then I’m normally taking bird photos, so composition is often secondary to getting any shot at all before they fly off, and to waiting for the right pose if they are not too restless.

I do like the way you’ve subverted conventions. You’ve all those strong leading lines leading to … nothing. Instead, the beauty is on the far right, out of the way. and the rest just contrasts that beauty with urban.

I’m just curious: what have you got against 9:16? My own dislikes on cropping are only when people crop too close to the subject, losing context, or too far away, capturing irrelevant background.

Here, I could well imagine free cropping this image to about this ratio: a lot of pole seems right somehow.