My husband started laughing while our family was eating lunch one day.  (Living in a house full of boys and men, I am getting used to the potty humor so forgive me here.  I am using it to illustrate my point).  He remarked on how funny Spiderman's position was, poised over our son's plate.  I have to admit that I laughed. 

Next I grabbed my camera and thought about how to capture the shot.  One thing that immediately came to my brain was that I wanted Spiderman to be the subject of the photograph but I still wanted our son in the picture.  So I made these decisions:

When taking a shot, you should be thinking about what the subject is and how/if you want to make the subject stand out.  There are many ways to do this but here are a few to consider.  These are not meant to be rules, but things to practice so you can take the picture you want to take:

• A viewer's eye will always go to what is sharpest.  Make sure your subject is the sharpest thing.  You can do this with depth of field (aperture) and in your choice of lens but in an effort to keep this simple, I will stop there.

• Color can help draw the eye to (or away from) your subject.  If you want to photograph a drop of rain on a green leaf, leave the red flower out of the composition because the red flower will compete with your subject.  Red, yellow, and orange tend to stand out in photographs.

• Leave out distracting elements in a photograph.  If they serve no purpose, leave them out if you can by changing your position, zooming with your lens, etc.
  

• Allow the subject to take up lots of space in your photograph.

• Your viewer will immediately connect with the eyes in the subject, whether the subject is a person or an animal. Of the subject is not a person, do something to minimize the subject by making them smaller in the shot or making them out of focus.
  

• Whatever is different about a group of similar items will stand out.  For example, a blue chair in a line of white chairs will stand out.