your thoughts on this one..Orange Spotted Pipe Fish portrait

Posted by patpasquale-nyc on Fri Dec 09, 2005 3:29 am

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as a diver/photographer, I love this personally, but do I enter this or not?
I love the eye on the 1/3, and the space going foward, but not sure about the snout being dead center or the red behind it. I am NOT a big fan of changing the shot dramatically, so if I do to much CS work to it, it kind of loses the 'got it' feeling of the shot.
Stu & Woody, I love your underwater work and comments, but I wonder what non diver photogs think as well?
the subject is 4tops 5inches long and much thinner than a soda straw, which adds to being able to just find it, let alone, as on this shot, I worked the subject for almost the whole dive.
thanks in advance for your thoughts~
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pasquale

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by sandboa on Fri Dec 09, 2005 10:52 am

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Pasquale,

I'm not a diver, but I thought I would make a few comments. It is a great shot first of all. When you consider that it was taken underwater, it is all the more remarkeable. A few comments -

1. The red "blob" behind the head really distracts from the focus of the picture. If you could select and desaturate it, I think it might help bring the attention back to the pipefish. If that wasn't there, the colors of the pipefish would certainly jump out more.

2. I'm not quite sure if it is sharp on the fish's eye? It appears the plane of focus might be a tad in front? Hard to tell with fish however. Their slime coat seems to blur focus sometimes for me.

Very well done. I hope you will enter it as it is certainly worthy of evaluation.

Chris Harrison
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by scubastu on Fri Dec 09, 2005 1:30 pm

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Pasquale,

I like this shot, I'd have like a bit more of the animal in the image, but like the space in front of the snout. Nice Catchlight from the DS125.

Stu

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by Carolyn E. Wright on Fri Dec 09, 2005 2:48 pm

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I like the shot very much. For my tastes, I'd tone down the red and then crop/rotate the image a small bit to make the head and snout a bit more diagonal in the shot. The surrounding coral (?) is really nice!

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by Paul Burwell on Fri Dec 09, 2005 3:28 pm

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I'll start off by stating I'm not a diver.

I really like this shot. I don't find the red behind the snout distracting except for what I perceive to be an eye at the top right of the red.

Excellently exposed and a very interesting subject. The snout being in the middle of the shot doesn't bother me at all.

Great job.

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by NDCheryl on Fri Dec 09, 2005 5:09 pm

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I like this a lot. I like the red in the BG as it compliments the red in the fishes eye. I really like the comp as well.

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by Carol Clarke on Sat Dec 10, 2005 11:25 am

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Great shot Pasquale! and this time the red patch is a real bonus in the composition IMO. For me, it brings the whole image together and adds a welcome splash of colour. The position of the Pipe Fish is just right in the overall scheme of things. I like this a lot!

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by Woody Mayhew on Sun Dec 11, 2005 7:58 am

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Very nice shot, Pat. I like it as is. I, too, like the red sponge in the background. I am inclined to like keeping habitat elements in UW photos as they often give hints to where to look for creatures by seeing where they live or what they eat. Sorry for the slow response as I just returned last night from my November dive trip to the Philippines.

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