The real question in photography is what is the most important element – what draws the photographer into the scene? Looking at this issue from the other side, the question would be what don’t we need in the scene. When we see with our eyes, our brain cleans up the scene and automatically minimizes or ignores unwanted elements. What we can do with a camera is to frame the fewest amount of elements needed to tell the story of that moment and direct the brain to what we want it to see. The top photo is a story about the leaf. Almost all the lines lead to the leaf. I increased the saturation on the orange of the leaf and the blue of the ice. The complimentary colors bring more attention.
The lower photo uses black and white to make the ice stand out. The black water, the currents in the water and the 3 smaller pieces of ice all make the ice in the foreground the star of the story.
