A couple of weeks ago I was out at the Arboretum, wandering around the gardens.  Since it has been a weird winter, there was very little if any snow, so plants and landscapes were kinda blah.  One bit of color that did catch my eye was a round spot of lichen on one of the trees.  So, I went and made several hand-held photos (using and image stabilized lens and bracing myself on a nearby branch).

None of the photos was close to decent.  Too much camera shake.

So, I went back the next week, tripod in hand, to reshoot the lichen...and further problems arose.  Turns out the spot that attracted me is too high to shoot the composition I had in mind.  Even at full extension of the head and the legs almost together, I couldn't get what I wanted.  The shot below is the closest I came, but I'd have really preferred the round yellow and white clump on the bottom of the image rather than the top.

Lichen

What I did like, though, was the texture and detail in the lichen, especially contrasted with the tree bark.  So, I recomposed to landscape.  Then I spotted the single piece of fluff (cattail seed?) on the left, which provides a weird sense of balance to the image.

So, keep working at it.  Even if you don't end up where you expected, the final result may surprise and please you equally (or more).

Lichen