Hints of Autumn: Rice Harvest

@cat: Thank you (again and again....) for your thoughtful comments. A few days ago you wisely wrote that in photography composition seems "partly conscious and decided and partly intuitive," and that is certainly true in my case. Like most everyone, I take many, many photos of any given subject all the while modifying the composition slightly until it finally feels right, solid, and whole. Almost every shot on this blog is the fifth or the tenth refinement of the photo that I began with, as I explore the subject from different angles and with different compositions. In fact, finding the "right" composition is one of the most pleasing aspects of photography to me. I very rarely crop or modify the composition in editing software after I've taken the shot. It's either done right in the camera or it's trashed. (The only consistent exception are these little square shots, which I have grown to love.) I find when I get home and see the photo on the screen, that I can articulate the composition with words and how it works (or doesn't) and why it all hangs together and is neatly balanced out. But those ideas did not consciously occur to me at the time I was taking the photo. Instead, it seems intuitive, and at some point the photo feels balanced ... feels "right." Done.

@Bishop: Thanks so much for your thoughtful comment. I hadn't thought of three women, and I wonder if the birds would be flattered or insulted .... :-)
Regarding composition, I think we can all agree that, as you say, "what's important is the final result." What's wonderful is how differently everyone gets to that final result. Of course it's great to try to keep working with a photo once you have it in your computer. In my case, however, I prefer to try to get things "right" in the camera, because it makes me pay attention while I'm taking photos, and that's exactly why I love photography: it makes me pay attention; it is an act of meditation. So while I'm taking a photo I don't want to also be thinking forward that what I'm doing now isn't really adequate but I will fix it later. I want to get it as right as possible now. And I have so many thousands of pictures crowding my computer memory files -- and most of them I never look at again after taking them -- that unless the photo is of sentimental value, I don't feel compelled to keep it. I don't need to rescue the bad ones. I need to learn from them and then put them in the trash. But this is only how I work and is not a prescription for others.
And, finally, thanks for your suggestion. I could go on to explain why I debated about that before I left that in, but it wouldn't really matter anyway. People like what they like.