Discern what you are really interested in and center your efforts on getting the best photo of this subject, whether it a still life, your funny cat, your doggy, a friend, a family matter, a mood, a place or culture.
Then be sure to keep anything that would distract out of the picture.
The easiest way to do this is to watch your borders - the edges of the view you see through the camera's viewfinder. Then recompose if anything - such as an unattractive telephone wire, an old soda can, a distracting sign, your finger, or your camera strap - hangs into your picture.
It can become more difficult if you want to, say, shoot a San Francisco cable car without a single distracting telephone line. But even in such a difficult case, you have many options.
You can:
- Focus in on a close-up that tells the whole story;
- Move around until you arrange the telephone lines into a neat pattern that leads to the subject; or
- Take a panning shot that makes the cable car remain in focus while the background goes blurry.