Hi David,
I really appreciate what you shared here. I took up photography from books purely as a hobby. Very very simple yet effective tips. Wished I had read them before I took these photos during my recent trip.
Co-incidentally, I had to crop a portrait I took of a little girl playing into a landscape one because I felt the portrait I took was not able to convey what I wanted "To draw my viewer in to look at her face".
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bernardng/7241285472/in/photostream