Compose instead of Pose

Portrait photography often provides the advantage of asking your subject, person or people, to pose for the picture. In nature photography, that advantage is not an option. We cannot ask a cloud to hold still or ask a mountain to move slightly to the left. Driftwood does not twist or bend at our beckoned whim. Therein lies the art of composition. There are tips to create pleasing compositions, such as the rule of thirds, use of foreground, leading lines, and so on. And then there is the creative "eye" of the photographer. To find your creative eye and composition, move around your subject to view it from all sides, lay down and look up, and climb up to look down (safely). See what others do not see by developing your creative eye and compositions.

In this example of composing the subject, the striking vertical driftwood spear, I walked around it and took multiple views of the static pose it provided for my creative "eye".