mbeidermann, thanks i appreciate your comments. the first bridge image, of Brooklyn Bridge, is taken from a park area on the brooklyn side of the river. The second is of Williamsburg Bridge, again from the Brooklyn side, taken from the roof of the Hotel I stayed in.
I definitely feel that I need to work on my images more, and push them to a higher standard, I just wanted to make a website while I had some free time as I feel it will be useful in the future. The gallery script that I used, which is one of the nicer looking free scripts that I could find, requires all the images to be the same size for it to work, therefore the white borders are a requirement. What colour does the background appear for you?
leGreve, yeah i totally agree with you. for now, i just wanted to put up some content, and i am fully aware that most of the pictures that I have are not at the level that I want them to be at. gradually as I take better photographs, I will update the site with fresher, better material. But for now, i'm not too worried. I'm not in a position where i'm attracting visitors to the site from google or where ever, so yeah. thanks anyway!