I like how you presented your problem and how you worked it out. The only critique I would give you is to be careful with colour saturation - the picture with the red roof could be toned down a bit. Otherwise your photos are good, well thought out and I love the negative space :)
@countrygirl, thank you - is it the one with the pond or the bridge? The one with the pond is red orange - it is indeed shouting. I didn't edit it though - just cropped a few but that one is just as how it was taken, I suck at photoshop - it's very annoying to use or maybe I haven't really spend enough time - that, too.
It's the one that follows your sentence "And this is what the whole deal of that pond looks like." I don't use PhotoShop either. I use the editing in Picassa and am happy with how that turns out. Your photos are really good....they follow a line that draws the eye into the picture. I heard Photoshop is tough to learn which is why I haven't learned it. :) Keep taking photos, you are good at it.
@countrygirl thank you :)
yes, that's bright red orange indeed - it's the Dutch' national color so that grocery store got their roof painted that way.
I don't use photo shop either, I like taking pics just how things are and I just change the angles sometimes.