Finding a pleasing composition can take some effort. There are so many options, so many ways of arranging all the elements in the frame even when photographing only what nature provides. You can choose what to include, what to exclude, what angle to use, how close or far from the subject. Sometimes a single composition immediately stands out, you just know that’s how you want your photograph to look. But other times it can be more challenging.

Today’s images present an example of a scene that I struggled with. There was a beautiful pink wild geranium against some lovely green leaves. Simple, right? Why would something like this present a challenge?

I consider the first image I made the opening scene. It contains all the elements, but I didn’t necessarily put a lot of thought into it yet, beyond capturing this lovely flower.

Then I wondered if maybe I was showing a little too much greenery. Perhaps I could move the camera a little closer to the flower, or crop the image after the fact. The flower is centered, there’s lots of green leaves on the left and just a little hint of leaves to the right. As an interesting side note, I don’t believe the leaves on the left are those of the geranium, but I believe those on the right are.

Was I still showing too much? Was that little bit of vine-like growth on the leaf to the left adding anything to the composition or distracting from it? Would zooming in a bit more create a more pleasing image? How about moving the flower just a bit to the left so it wasn’t dead center? Maybe I should have found a way to move it even more to the left (or to the right)?

Then I realized the flower and that small leaf beside it might be an interesting combination, so I recomposed to line up both of these. The depth of field was fairly shallow so I didn’t get both of them perfectly in focus, but I thought the composition was interesting.

What would happen if I simply flipped the image on its side with the leaf down below and the flower up top? This gives a slightly different feel than the horizontal arrangement.

I don’t have any good answers for you this time. I didn’t end up with a single composition that stood out to me far more than the others. Instead there were several that I found interesting but I still don’t know exactly how I feel about any of them. That’s one reason why it often helps to let photos sit for a while. But I figured this time instead of doing that I’d share some of the thoughts I go through when composing some of my photographs. Sometimes they are very conscious thoughts as I compose but other times they are more a flow of feeling as I explore without really thinking.

What do you think? Does one of these stand out to you more than the others? Do none of them work for you? Can you think of other compositions you might have tried given what you’re able to see of the scene?

Regardless of any of that, though, I hope you enjoyed seeing what I find to be a very beautiful wild flower that blooms around here in the spring. I found this one in Prince William Forest Park on May 12th of 2022.

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