The Best Photo of The Week - Reflection in Photography.

One of the wonderful subjects in landscape photography is reflections. All we need is an interesting subject and a stretch of water in which to capture its reflection. It can be a mountain, a hill, a tree or even a building if we think about the urban landscape.

What do we need to do to photograph the subject's reflection? First of all, we have to lower the camera as close as possible to the water, and we will use a lens with a focal length as short as possible, preferably a wide angle. When I say stretch of water you probably think of a wonderful and very large lake, but to be surprised that a pond is enough, at least I was when I saw a movie with Art Wolfe photographing the reflection of a mountain landscape in a pond, maybe not wider than 3m.

It doesn't even have to be deep, a thin layer of water is enough. The secret is to get as low as possible, as close to the water as possible. Many times we ignore this aspect for the simple fact that standing we do not see who knows what reflection in the water, thus passing by some wonderful frames. Everything changes as we approach the water.

Another important aspect in taking such a photo is the exposure. Even if the water surface and our subject receive about the same amount of sunlight, expect the subject's reflection to be underexposed by at least one stop to the subject. A gradual filter (GND) would be great to balance the exposure.

For those who prefer to spend more time in front of the computer retouching photos, two exposures are enough, one for the subject and one for its reflection. But be careful not to overdo the processing, for the human brain it is normal for the water reflection to be darker.