As mentioned in my previous post getting low is the name of the game for me...but what about when it comes to water? No no I'm not afraid of water or worried about getting wet. Trust me 90% of the time I come home from being out in the field I'm soaking wet and full of dirt. The issue with water is the reflection...

Its a perfect calm day and you head out to your local pond. You take my advice and you get right down at water level..pretty much elbows in the water but will this give you the look you want in a situation like this? Sure you will have accomplished that low POV (Point of view) creating that intimate look but what about the reflection? Is this extreme low POV creating the reflection you want? Lets look at what I mean...

In this image below taken at Quidi Vidi Lake a few years ago I had positioned myself at waters edge. It was an almost perfectly calm day (which is rare around here). Have a look at the reflection, notice how the low angle compressed the reflection? You barely see the ducks body in the reflection. Mind you I did nail the eye in the reflection so that's a plus. So is this the look we want?  

Lets look at another. In this shot if you look closely at the reflection you can see that the eye is almost right next to the actually bird in the reflection. See how compressed it can be when you are so low to the water level. 

So what do we do? We break the getting low rule. We need to change our angle so that we are looking down into the water..our reflective glass in this case..kind of like a mirror.

Inorder to achieve the more fuller reflection we need to sit up. If we stand what will happen? We will force the subject to background (water in this case) to be too close and will create that undesired look. So I suggest sitting up or on your knees (which isn't uncomfortable so wear knee pads if you decide to shoot this way).

Lets look at a couple shots where I was more up right. In this first shot unfortunately it wasn't a perfectly calm day but you can see that the reflection would have been much fuller and more desirable. As you can tell I'm still at a low angle but i'm up just enough to capture more of a reflection.  

In this shot below of the Killdeer I positioned myself slightly higher and switched to a vertical shot to capture the full reflection in this small pool of water.

Depending on the look you want or the look you can achieve, your angle plays a huge part in terms of water. A clam day plays an even bigger role as you need that perfect calm water to capture that reflection in...in my case Newfoundland has very few calm days (hence the lack of perfect reflections to show you)

I will allows recommend the low point of view for its intimate look, its ability to help separate the subject from the BG and lets not forget that it helps our wildlife subjects feel more comfortable with our presence....but getting low might not always achieve the look you want.

So move around to find that perfect shot... a foot or two can make a huge difference...