Some interesting comments there
These are mostly untouched images so would be tweaked before being entered into a competition though I do agree that in comparison to what experts can achieve they are pretty modest results. The main reason they look like snapshots rather than professional shots is the lack of an underwater strobe - these are all taken using natural light with only the anenome at the top having the benefit of the flash+diffuser. Thing is, underwater strobes are upwards of £300+ for one and you normally need a pair! It's like trying to do a portrait shoot with on-camera flash only really. Except in portrait shoots the subject is rarely trying to swim off, eat something else or eat you
Also, I often find that photography competitions and judges tend to dislike images YOU like and instead reward a certain type of "club image" almost. While I remember the fun I had taking these, seeing them in person and then finding I had usable images, I'm under no illusion that they are not top tier quality wise but also club judges wouldn't rate them particularly highly! Still, I think it's likely I'll enter a couple of them now and then for curiosity's sake!
However in response to your feedback -
The anenome - from memory, there could possibly have been a better viewpoint, this was stuck on the side of a coral wall 30m down (incidentally overhanging the ocean where the bottom was nearly 4 *miles* below me
). I'm not sure whether or not I'd have been able to get rid of that intruding piece of coral though, it's a bit of a jumble down there with everything living closely together! Also from an objective viewpoint, I'm not sure that it detracts from the scene - if it had been another diver's fin, or a fish head, I'd agree, but this was part of the scene.
Stingray tails - for "Into the Blue" this is easily rectified, I can simply clone a little extra space on the right and show it ending. The problem I had with this one is that he's swimming away from us so is technically an "animal backside" shot. I know how judges feel about those! But this shot was deliberately framed to show it swimming off into the blue. Would it not lose that element if it was cropped on the left? I tried that and it looked more like a portrait of a ray from behind which is less effective, not least because I have a better shot from the front in the other picture, but also because it's not the scene I was trying to convey. My goal was to give the ray someting to "fly into", as it were. The other ray does include parts of another diver and I'd definitely clone that out. I could probably also add a little to the top of the scene to show I'd captured the entire tail. However, my problem with the "not a whole animal" comment is that even if they weren't complete tails, does it seriously detract from the image and invalidate it in the eyes of the wildlife judge? Is it not a little like saying "you're missing a hair from the tip of that cat's tail" surely?
(Don't get me started on how judges sometimes rate animal portraits vs "whole animals" differently depending on whether or not they know or like the animal in question
)
Flamingo Tongue - yes this is a tricky crop. However given the stark difference between the slug and what it's eating/living on, I had assumed it was very clear what the focal point was? Perhaps when naming it I'd use "Flamingo Tongue Sea Slug feeding on coral" - latin name supplied of course! The problem here is putting the creature in context is more important given the setting. If it was a bear I agree I could lose a lot of the surrounding area, everyone knows where bears live! In this case, I think it adds value to the record shot showing a wider view of where you can find these creatures and the sea fan is quite dull in comparison to the vivid slug. I'll try more crops before submitting that one anywhere I think.
I hadn't posted these here for critique originally, mainly because there were multiple images I wanted to share and the ISO details are dictated by the shooting environment but the feedback is
definitely always welcome!
