What do you see?
Look at this image carefully. What do you see? (If you need a hint, click the link under the image - or click the image to see it larger on my website.)
Oak Creek, Cascade Range, Washington state
©Ed Book
What did you see?
Did you answer that you saw a rough crumbly rock wall filling the majority of the frame and in the background a sagebrush slope and in the background a bull elk and in front of the bull elk an elk cow? Or did you search around the image looking for something hidden? If you did, you probably quit searching when you saw the bull elk. But, if you kept searching, did you stop at the elk cow or did you continue on to see the...?
Surprisingly often, when out and about while standing at my camera on tripod, if someone happens along, they stop and look to where the camera is aimed and ask what I'm photographing. I might say something about how I like how the lines in the hills repeat or how I like how the light is doing this or that and they walk away mumbling something about how they thought I saw a deer or bear or such... some folks need to have something, some animal-dot in the image to be worth making an image (or for them, snapping a picture).
In the case of this particular image, I was photographing a herd of elk in the foreground and the rock wall caught my attention because of the texture in the afternoon light. It wasn't anything I would normally photograph but decided to make a capture in case I needed a documentary image of how columnar structures of ancient lava flows shatter and break down (or something like that). As I was zooming in to compose the image, motion on the slope beyond caught my eye and I followed and decided to include the counterpoint bull and cow.
Peace