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Sometimes the easiest way to improve the composition of a photo is to simplify the content that is shown in the photo. When framing up to take a photo it’s normal to focus on your subject and take the shot. To simplify a composition we need to take a few moments to look at what is around the subject in the frame. Does it need to be there? Is it contributing to the story you want this photo to tell?
Sometimes it can be a simple as taking a step to the side or getting a little closer. Sometimes it’s about getting further away. If you want part of the landscape around your subject to tell the story of the photo then you’ll want to move back, use a wider angle lens and probably stop down your aperture to get more of the scene in focus.
Take this image as an example.
This is a photo of some tiny flowers on the very end of some otherwise bare branches. I used a shallow depth of field and telephoto zoom to blur out the background and focus on the flowers. However, when looking at this image, you might find your eye is drawn to the dark patch from the leaf on the right side. It hasn’t done anything at all to help this composition, and worse still, it’s pulling attention away from what the subject was. This needs to be simplified in order to improve it.
