Roof Shadows - The Palouse, Washington

There are times as a landscape photographer that I shoot way too wide and sometimes miss an important feature of a scene. Sure, the scene is usually in a wide-angle photo, but so are a lot of other details that confuse the viewer's eyes and they miss the important part. That is why I find myself trying very different compositions of the same scene, trying to capture the "right" one. Why not just shoot the "right" one in the beginning? My answer is that you don't always know which composition is the one until you get home and edit the image. All you know is that something in the scene caught your eye and compelled you to want to take the photo. 

For this photo, I took probably 25 shots of this abandoned farmhouse in the Palouse. I took wide shots, tight shots and photos from all different angles and heights. It wasn't until I reviewed the images that I discovered what attracted my eye in the first place. It was the shadows of the roof line and how the sunlight came through the openings in the roof that drew my eye to see inside that window. Had I not varied my shooting, I might never have found what inspired me. My advice is to mimic this behavior and you might realize what drove you to take a photo. After all, shooting digital doesn't cost anything but time.