We’ve all seen amazing photos of nature reflected by a single raindrop, and today you’re learn how easy it is to make attention-grabbing images like the one you see above. It’s all about understanding why raindrops are “natures miniature lenses” and the simple technique for leveraging their magic.

Instructor Polak puts it like this: “Raindrops aren’t just water, they are tiny lenses into another word.” Today she demonstrates how these oft-ignored little miracles of nature can transform your outdoor photography by turning  a simple scene into an unexpected masterpiece.

Polak is a highly acclaimed impressionist photographer based in New Zealand whose unique tutorials will guide you through capturing the beauty of fleeting moments “where every frame tells a story.” In this quick episode you’ll learn how to photograph raindrops while uncovering hidden details, vibrant textures and other compelling close-up elements.

Raindrops also provide a great opportunity for capturing mesmerizing refraction and inverted- reflection effects that excite the imagination, and Polak explains everything you need to know in barely eight minutes. It’s easier to grasp the essence of this concept by thinking of these tiny water globes as near-spherical lenses with very short focal lengths.

This unique optical property either magnifies the scene behind them or condenses and inverts a raindrop “just like a miniature fisheye lens for a surreal and unexpected perspective.” Polak also demonstrates how to take advantage of the fact that a raindrop bends the light as it passes through.

Do it right and the reflected image will be crystal clear and brilliantly sharp—offering a microscopic view into the leaf texture that lays below. It’s important to experiment with different angles relative to the sun and the vantage point (high or low) from which you shoot. Polak provides stunning examples of how a quick shift  in perspective can make a big difference in your results.

There are a few more things to consider for taking advantage of this awe-inspiring subset of macro photography, one of which is that the reflections you see don’t actually form within the raindrop, but rather just in front of it, and how this affects the manner in which you proceed.

Once you get the hang of this, and it doesn’t take long, your repertoire will expand just like the elements in the raindrops you shoot. Polak’s popular YouTube channel features many more instructional videos for stepping outside the box.

We also recommend watching the earlier tutorial we featured, demonstrates six game-changing techniques from an accomplished British pro for capturing outstanding nature and landscape photos in the camera.