Try reflection photography to find unique perspectives.

As you move around your reflective source, adjust your composition. Try your shot with objects in the foreground, center a subject in the reflection of a lake, or use the rule of thirds to position a building on one side of a puddle’s reflection. Don’t be afraid to look a little odd to passersby. The best angle might require you to squat inches from water collected in a storm drain, but that is a small price to pay for a breathtaking shot.

Learn to see water, reflections, windows, and mirrors in a new way. Once you do, the creative opportunities you can find are only as limited as your imagination.

Need-to-know tips about outdoor reflection photos.

A serene, glass-like pond won’t reflect anything on a day when its surface is disrupted by a downpour. But minutes after the storm stops, the water may be perfectly still and surrounded by trees that glisten with raindrops. As is often the case with photography, timing is a factor.

Weather

You can’t control the weather, but you can set yourself up for success with a good plan. Wind and anything else that can upset the smooth surface of lakes and ponds can be problematic. Winds are often calmer in the early morning or at dusk. Try those times if you want to capture mirror images of mountains, trees, and more. And, of course, check the weather report for rain.

Lighting

Flat, reflective surfaces can be subject to midday glare from the sun. “The number one thing you want to avoid with reflective photography is glare,” Grobmeier explains. The vaunted golden hour, when light is diffused around sunrise and sundown, is a great time of day to get good light without the glare.

Note that with certain equipment and camera settings, you may be able to work at midday, or you can even capture reflection photography at night.

Location

It can be a lot of work to line up the right angle on a building or mountain that reflects off a certain body of water. You can save yourself time and hassle with a little research.

Shutter speed

Adjust shutter speed based on the amount of light and potential movement in your shot. A quick shutter speed will ensure you freeze a moment in time, ideal for capturing the reflection of a subject walking by a puddle or window. Even with ripples on water, a fast shutter speed may catch portions of a reflection.

If your subject is still and your reflective surface is too, you have more options. With a tripod to steady your camera, and cooperative weather to give you a nice reflective body of water, you can use a relatively slow shutter speed. Use a tripod and slow shutter speed at night to capture the reflection of stars.

A longer shutter speed can help you get beautiful shots when water is choppy, but these long exposures won’t capture reflections. They will turn waves into dreamy, silky pools of water, but those surfaces will not be reflective, as they capture seconds worth of waves in motion.

Circular polarizers and neutral density filters

You can attach both of these filters to a lens to reduce the amount of light that enters your camera. Neutral density (ND) filters are like sunglasses for your lens. They filter out bright light, so you can capture reflection photos when the sun is higher in the sky. Circular polarizers remove or lessen light that reflects off surfaces like water. If you use one for reflection photography, it can reduce glare so you can capture more detail in your reflective shots.

Get creative with reflection shots.

While the symmetry of a mountain perfectly reflected in a lake may be a beautiful photo, don’t hesitate to explore other types of reflective shots.

“Think outside the box in terms of adding a bit of realism to the photo,” Grobmeier suggests. “You can disrupt the surface by throwing a rock into the water. It breaks the image real quick, but you still have the reflection.” Put a leaf in the middle of a puddle. Play around, and see what happens.

Let your gear give you options. “Bring a tripod with you,” Grobmeier says. “If you don’t have someone to take a photo of you, you can take a photo of yourself on a timer and add yourself into the reflection to make the photo more fun.”

And, maybe most importantly, don’t hold back. “Go for that artistic shot,” recommends Koetzle. “I think this shot might look awesome. But maybe it doesn’t. Who cares? You might end up with something you didn’t expect.”

Fine-tune your reflective images.

It may take practice to get the hang of reflection photography, and Adobe Photoshop Lightroom is a great tool to help you organize your attempts on the way to perfection. You can also edit and tweak your images in Lightroom. Adjust Highlights and Shadows, Hue, and Saturation to amplify the effect of your reflective shots. When you land on edits you love, save them as a Lightroom preset to create your own filter-like adjustments you can use again and again.

If you have trouble with the perfect reflection shot, you can always turn to Adobe Photoshop to help. For example, you can create an HDR image that combines two photos. Take a shot of the whole scene as a base. Then, make your focal point the subject beyond the body of water and snap a shot. Finally, change your focus to the reflection and capture that image. You can combine all three in Photoshop to create a well-lit, perfectly focused scene.

Keep your eye out for a good reflection, capture it as best as you can in-camera, and you can always edit to your heart’s content afterward. Practice reflection photography skills in-camera and in post-production, and your path to brilliant reflective shots will be crystal clear.