Our judge, Ellen Stein, said to watch out for negative space. It's often boring and detracts from the main subject. When in doubt, crop closer. Look at disjointed parts of an image. It might be better to crop the image "in half" and make two separate images with stronger focal points. Be careful handling white tones, that they are not blown out and that you are not losing definition and detail, for example in the feathers of a bird. Remember to use a thin white stroke to clearly identify the edge, particularly of B&W images being projected against a dark background during competition.