Million Dollar Courthouse

Normally I would have cropped out the bottom part of this photo but have you ever found when you develop photos that you have to crop out a bunch of the photo to make the normal sizes? I've been trying to train myself to take extra ground or sky in a photo so that when it goes to print, none of the important stuff is cut out. I hate that!
Also, this was a hard building to shoot.  The other corner of the building is blah...nothing of interest. Yet the trees on this side are almost in the way.  I got as low as I could. I need some sort of system for laying my camera on the ground on it's side to get the shot I want for this. (I guess if I had like...a rolled up pair of socks or a bean bag to put under the lens, I could have been down a bit lower instead of on my tripod)