This challenge is perfect for me because I feel that I have learned a lot about the mechanics of my camera and choosing settings, but I am challenged by trying to figure out how to compose a photo effectively so that I am please with the final result.

I took this first photo of a kaleidoscope held up against my lens and backlit from a window and then cropped to fill the whole frame.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Shot this puppy when practicing backlighting and cropped him down to a headshot.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Captured this butterfly at The Cape of Good Hope and cropped for a closer view.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

I shot this copper music box for Jennifer Well’s Color Your World-Copper photo challenge and cropped it to remove some of the background clutter.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

I learned that one of the values of shooting raw is that I can go back through a history of my edits in Lightroom to see an original photo and compare it to the cropped version. I also recently learned about The Golden Ratio and tried to think about it as I was cropping.

Cee’s Compose Yourself-Cropping