Think, point, click, and crop

Point and click,
Think, point and click
Think, point and click and sometimes crop...

This is how I've slowly graduated in my photography adventures. For the longest time I wasn't too much into photography, but loved to have lots of pictures. That point and click phase passed quickly though, when I realized that half the photos weren't coming out well. Then there was this extended phase where I would think, then point and click. But I refused to tamper with the picture - no changing effects, no tuning, no cropping... nothing... I believed that I would compromise the very essence of being a serious photographer. Because of that, I would end up with pictures (especially the ones destined to be macro pictures) where composition seemed to be thrown out the drain! Here's an example - I had gone strawberry picking last Summer with a few friends. One of them picked up a stick with a small beetle on it and I jumped at the opportunity of taking a picture. But the beetle was so small that no matter what I did, the macro setting on a Canon A530 wasn't good enough to capture it. The moment I zoomed in with the macro setting to capture just the beetle, the focus would go out of whack. I tried different things - even asked my friend to hold the beetle in the sun vs. shade (all this while the poor beetle was trying to escape! sorry!). So finally I gave up, zoomed out and here's the picture...As a memory, this picture was good, but I didn't see any photographic value in it. So I decided to crop it... yes, I cropped! Thank god Picasa asks if the original image should be saved or not.. Here's the result -
Now, I agree that standing on it's own, this picture has a flaw - it is not crisp enough - looks pixelated (is that even a word?!??!). But whaddya think? My friend's hand created the background, the beetle stood out with a fair amount of focus on it, and if you watch closely, you can even see a small water droplet on it's back!!!

I'm in a phase now where cropping a picture once in a while is okay. At least it gives me some lessons in composition and all that! Fraudulent transaction? I think not! :-D

Oh btw, Happy new year! I know it's February, but this is my first post in this new year.