Sometimes the size of objects can be deceiving in photos. The magnitude of large elements can get lost. Small elements can be made to look large. Sometimes this is what we want and other times it is not. Look at this image:

The size of the iceberg does not look that big without the boat. The boat adds scale. I took various shots of this iceberg. As you can see the light was not good as it was the wrong time of day. So I placed the lens cap on and spent some time with my family (this was vacation, not photography). Some time passed as we were looking at the scene. Then I saw the boat going out. I ran to my spot, removed the lens cap and shot this image. The boat transforms this image into something better. Sometimes we want people to know how big or small something is. Real size is shown by adding something for scale.

          Shoot icebergs during the wrong time of day is not a good idea. They are bright, can be shinny, and they reflect a lot of light. That often results in blown highlights (the whites are too bright with no detail). A polarizing filter can help some with the reflection. Expose for the right (under expose so that the whites still have detail) and lift the darker areas in post (use image editing software such as Photoshop to lighten the dark areas).

          Scale is determined by the brain by taking an object of which it knows the size and then using that size to tell you how big the other objects are in relation to the known object. In this case, the brain knows how big the man in the boat it (relatively speaking) and uses that to let you know how big the iceberg is.

          If you want to show the real size of something add an element for scale.