Winter, you must be trying to get serious. I will say, of course you have to crawl around on your hands and knees, as you are down under!

I will add that most that are new to photography, naturally see the world as they have been used to seeing it. Our brains are programmed to see at eye level. And we are used to seeing our normal world, well, normal. That is to say, trees grow up, water does not flow uphill and the sky is a certain color.
Therefor when we see a different camera angle, we immediately perceive it to be different, and not business as usuall.
Perhaps a foto of a small dog, taken from our usuall point of view, looks normal. But with the camera, below the dog, more as the dog sees us, looks immediately different, and will often convey a lot more interest from the viewer. A foto from a birds eye view or a Dutch tilt(purposely tilting the camera, will have a similar reaction.
It's a high skill that must be learned, and even often by more advanced photographers as well.
Anyway Winter, good post.
SS

A common expectation is to capture a subject or scene "as the eye sees it".

How often do you see people taking photographs standing as they most commonly do?

The "best", most interesting, eye catching images are those which take the viewer out of their comfort zone, to let the viewer see either an unfamiliar subject or a familiar subject from a different point of view or under unusual conditions.

This can be achieved by hanging by your toes from a tree branch or a cliff, lying with your elbow in an ants nest, up to your armpits in mud, or simply using a wide angle lens.

I am often seen at car shows crawling around on hands and knees, getting down for a dramatic composition or with someone hanging onto my jacket so that I can lean well into an engine bay without touching anything.

By all means do not trespass or offend by your antics but to obtain that special of unusual shot requires you to shed some inhibitions.

If you appear to be a keen photographer on a mission you will be surprised how people will quite happily accommodate your endeavors.

So be as adventurous in your compositions as you can.

"But I am not as nubile as I was", I hear you say?

You don't necessarily need to get down near to the ground or climb a tree for that different point of view, or have an articulated screen for that matter.

With the advent of instant reviewing you have the luxury of holding the camera freehand and estimating the composition then compensating in another try and with a bit of practice you will be shooting from the hip like a gunslinger.

So stop being boring in your approach, step outside the envelope and discover a different world.

Rob.

Visual fixation is a common error in photographic composition.

It has been demonstrated in many ways and a common one is to challenge test subjects watch a magician doing a trick and to have them discover how he has tricked the eye.

At some point a man in a bright yellow duck costume crosses the stage in the background.

Typically only a very small percentage of subjects notice.

This is because they are fixated on one aspect of activities presented before them and there is no expectation of there being something so abstract as a duck appearing in that context.

This visual fixation is what makes humans so unreliable as witnesses.

We are all prone to seeing what we either want to see or expect to see and anonymous details, even very obvious ones, tend not even to register.

So how is this relevant?

How many times have you been disappointed with some aspect of your composition or surprised to see distractions which you did not remember being in the frame when you took the shot?

It is obvious that these omissions and distractions were evident at that moment of exposure, so do I need to say more?

Rob.