>>3160394>but how do you take a photograph amongst trees?I"m not trying to be cliched or hokey, but you need to be able to see the forest instead of the trees. You need to be able to step back and look at the big picture, to look at overall shapes and patterns and lines and whatnot. You need to be able to shift your perspective back and forth between individual elements and the big picture in order to find that balance.
>youre always going to be cutting some trees off.Yep. So cut off trees that don't matter and don't affect composition. Also, remember that there may not be a shot there. You may look at a scene and want to shoot it, but after a while you realize that it just doesn't work. That's okay. Be comfortable with not taking the shot.
>theres no direction, theres no way to isolate one tree among many. Why isolate? A subject doesn't have to be an object isolated. The subject can be the trees as a whole.
>what compositional rules can come into play here?Same as anything else, just that you have to be able to see the composition amongst a ton of clutter.
If you want inspiration on how to handle big tangled wads of trees check out Thomas Struth's Paradise series.