"It's tough to get close to birds here in the UK -- without that ability, being creative can be more challenging. But in Hokkaido Japan, normally shy species, such as Pintail, are very tame which opens up all sorts of creative possibilities. I am always looking to shoot familiar subjects in new ways. For this image I set up a boom pole with my camera and 20mm lens attached over a hole in the ice where ducks were congregating then waited while they got used to the camera above them. Once relaxed, I was able to lower the camera and fire the shutter using a remote."

Shot using a Nikon D3 with 20mm lens at ISO 640, f/8 at 1/500 sec using a boom pole and fired using a Pocket Wizard.