TECHNICAL ISSUES

1920: The upper corner needs to be edited out and the lower-right corner needs to be lightened-up. The same for the plant to the left. Even with those edits, I'm not certain that it passes. Focus should be on the rocks/people instead on the foreground. People on the beach will need probably model releases.

1979: Looks to me like a bad photoshop:

I'm also missing contrast.

If you zoom in to 200% on the second image you can see artifacts around the rock.

Hello,

The focus seems soft to me as well. It might be a problem with the type of lens. Did you use a kit lens that came with the camera? Often these lenses aren't very good.

Zoom in between 100-200% and you'll see that focus is rather soft in both images. In the first one the large rock on the right side is underexposed and distracting. In the second one the horizon is tilted.