Looking for patterns in nature photography

Patterns are nothing more than repeating forms, shapes, objects, or colors that are either arranged in order or randomly throughout an image.  Patterns add interest to nature photographs because they are quite pleasing to the eye because they bring visual rhythm and harmony and seek to move you through an image like the repeating notes or phrases in a musical score. One of the keys to using patterns is to emphasize the pattern, not the surroundings and this requires us to slow down, stop, look, listen and smell the roses as they say.  I will never forget when I was leading a group of nature photographers on an outing to photograph painted trillium and the were so excited at seeing hundreds of them that they stopped looking, listening, slowing down and delved right into those big beautiful showy flowers.  But every single one of them passed up the shot I liked best from the outing which was a single southern "confederate" violet growing in a patch of tassel rue (just the leaves).  There was this great pattern that had been "interrupted" by that single flower.  I still like that image today. So the first method of using patterns effectively is to emphasize the pattern as show in the close -up of the lesser purple fringed orchid above. This is also an example of a regular pattern. The other effective method of using patterns is to "break" the pattern with something that is different as in the case of the purple fringed orchid "breaking" the pattern of the ferns in the image below.

Now this is where other aspects of composition might come into play and you can consider the rule of thirds when composing the image in the viewfinder.  In this case the organization of the image placed the whole flower raceme in the upper right quadrant of the photo.

The last type of pattern is called an irregular pattern where the objects are randomly placed, not particularly ordered, but close enough to give the sense of a pattern. When using this type of pattern it is best to fill the frame with the subject. Since spring is rapidly approaching now is the time to begin planning those outings in the field and I suggest you think about looking for more patterns with the flowers to create more visually enticing images, but don't forget to do the close-ups and portraits too.