hello, i'm wondering if anyone would mind giving me some advise on how to improve my photography.

just cats for now, i haven't gotten a chance to go to the zoo...

While there are some interesting shots here, I find that most of them are slightly out of focus. Could be just lens softness, what are you shooting with? I like the first and last ones for composition the best. The eye pictures don't work for me because of the reflection of the lamp and window. The next two don't work for me because of the shallow DOF (depth of field) and the large OOF (out of focus) body areas in the front.

Sharpen the first one up and it's a winner. The last one has a bit of a distraction in it, the angular line coming up behind the head and right ear, looks like it's connected.
Above all, KEEP SHOOTING! And keep reading the forums here, you will learn a ton of stuff that will help. I've been reading for about 2 years now and I've learned so much.

Most of all WELCOME to FM!

Jo

My favorite is the second (first "eye" image) followed by the first and sixth, in that order. They are a good set.

For the second image, in Photoshop, I'd suggest some sharpening. At a guess, perhaps Smart Sharpen of up to 100% at about 0.3 pixels, to remove gaussian blur. Personally, I'd probably over do it by using the clone tool to remove the shadow of the desk lamp from the eye catch-light, but it may just be one of my idiosyncrasies. The other images may also benefit from some careful sharpening.

They are all interesting to a degree. The first is a nice B & W rendition. I like the color of the rest, I think. I can't be certain because you've posted images without their color space information. (In Photoshop that's normally saved in the file EXIF data when you save as a jpeg, but is not if you use the save for web option.) Without the color space info we can't be certain we view the images with the colors you intend. I like the colors if I assume you posted them in Adobe RGB color space. The color isn't quite as appealing if you intended to post them as the more common sRGB. In general I'd suggest if you work with your images in another color space, converting to sRGB before posting would be advantageous because not all viewers can properly display the wider Abobe RGB gamut. Obviously, if you handled the images to be sRGB, no conversion is needed.

Two other small suggestions: For the Photo Critique forum it helps to post a bit larger - perhaps 800 pixels on the longest side. Any larger makes viewing difficult for some readers and a smaller maximum, such as 640, makes it difficult to appreciate the image. Also, it's better to limit posts to one or two images at a time. Too many images in a post can make comment references confusing.

i think the second would be even better if the window reflection was not there it takes impact away from the lovely detail you have in the eye, the reflection would have been fine if it was smaller and less obtrusive

There is an artistic heritage for painting window catch lights in eyes. Painters have painted them that way for many years, although I admit they are more commonly painted in human eyes. Perhaps that's why I don't find a window catch light a detraction, as such.

It's not that they are there it's that they take over to much real estate for me, it dominates the iris