What is the Subject

Any type of art longs for a clearly defined subject; whether a movie, song, poem, blog, book, or photograph. This may seem obvious - so why is it so difficult, especially in landscape photography?
The fact of the matter is. We do choose subjects. We see a scene that captivates us, so we start snapping shots that we want to share with the world, maybe even hoping the world will want to buy our art. The question is the whole scene really what caught our attention? If your totally honest with yourself, the answer is likely - no. Not really.
That's a great start to improving our craft, yes, I include myself in this. Usually when looking at a "Grandscape" there is some part of it that grabbed our attention. Our first instinct is to desire to share the whole thing with our audience - we assume they will be as much in awe as we are. The fact is - they likely won't see it the way we do. To understand this better, do this the next time you’re viewing a grandscape with friends or family; ask each person individually. What do you see? What grabs your attention? If you are like me - you will quickly find that your friends or family have a variety observation.
As artists, it's our job to isolate the subject, so that our viewers can truly appreciate the scene as we intended. As we were able to prove with our experiment; a grandscape can be a grand-missed opportunity. If the viewer can't pick out our subject, we missed. What they pick out may not be as interesting to them as what captured our attention. If that is the case, they likely won't stick around long, and they certainly won't hit the BUY button. SO be sure to isolate the subject (not the grandscape). I do know firsthand that the grandscape can be an amazing subject. However, it can be too much to grab and hold the attention of the viewer (potential buyer). So, if you are looking at a scene, and the first thing that grabbed your attention was a waterfall, isolate and shoot the waterfall, make it clearly the subject, the star of the scene. If there are multiple things that grab your attention, take more shots, isolating each in its own image. Be sure to give "The Subject" most of the shot’s real estate.