This one is pretty simple and straight forward, which most compositions should be.

I keep my eye out for ying yang relationships. Characteristics that balance out, in an equal but opposite manner.

Not everything will always line up, but I think it helps to favor these relationships when you spot them, which led me to crop this photo the way I did.

Something I’ve really enjoyed about getting back into photography, is that I find it refueling my creativity.  When producing artwork from your imagination, it’s not just coming out of thin air. You have to rely on your past experiences, observations, and understanding of how things work. When I take pictures, I’m looking to observe and Identify what it is that makes something appealing.

I’ll use this image of train tracks I took in the rocky mountains for my first example:

I’d bore us both just using text to explain what it is I think is working well in this shot. Instead, I made this gif, illustrating How I See Things :)

Your eye naturally wants to follow paths and anything it can visually connect as lines when looking about an image. Knowing this, I pay attention to where the lines in a scene are directing the viewer to look. I don’t want them to slide my audience right off the picture. You know that photo that doesn’t hold your attention? It’s often because the image itself is telling you not to look at it :)