Southern Elephant seal bull showing dominance

[Andreas Liedmann]

Hi folks,
taken the image of this dominant male on South Georgia in Nov 2012. Wanted to go tight to isolate this couple out of a large herd of seals.
The female wanted to flee, but he did not let her go, just because of his size and weight.

Canon EOS 1D MK III
EF 500 IS L
Tripod

F8 ; ISO 500 ; 1/1ooo sec

My usual processing with RPP and PS , using various layers with levels and curves ; LCE and lump masks.
Cropped a sliver from bottom and RHS for composition, so basically more or less FF.

Hope you like it.

Cheers Andreas

[Steve Kaluski]

Hi Andreas, conveys the title very well.

Not sure about the almost solid black in the mouth? Any sharpening applied to her face? Everything else looks good, just dashing now. :wave:

Might tone down that highlight spot on the RH edge.

TFS
Steve

[Andreas Liedmann]

Hi Steve,
the mouth was already very dark in original exposure, so i forgot or better said did not notice when i did the contrast curves, should have masked that out.

Hey eagle eye, good point on the female, i tried to recover some sharpness , because she was slightly OOF.So i should backed off a bit or sharpening after downsizing.
and i will try next time , if i remember, to tone down this kind of spots.........!!!!???

Have fun in the snow , and do not fall over that often, it ..............hurts possibly.:wave:

Thanks for watching and sharing your thoughts.

Andreas

[Anette Mossbacher]

Hi Andreas,

your seal images are really great. Love them. Love the details and the rest. I would try to sharpen the female as Steve suggest, as well with those light dots to get rid of them or tone them down. Those might be penguins in flight :t3

[Andreas Liedmann]

[ I would try to sharpen the female as Steve suggest

Hi Anette, i think Steve meant not , that i have to sharpen the female, but think he was asking , if i sharpened her separately , if you look closely you could see easily the overdone sharpening:t3.

But thanks for your kind words, makes me happy.

Cheers Andreas

[Anette Mossbacher]

Than the female looks more smashed like a potato with all that weight on her :bg3:

Yeah the sharpening is my other thing to get better in :w3
I try hard to learn Andreas :bg3:

Ciao
Anette

[Rachel Hollander]

Hi Andreas - another nice image of the seals. As usual, excellent suggestions by Steve. This is one where I might have experimented in the field and gone with a little higher pov to capture the bottom of the female's face.

TFS,
Rachel

[Andreas Liedmann]

Thanks Rachel,
appreciated your comment, agree a bit higher in POV would have looked better.

But in real life , up and down with tripod and lens/cam combo that weighs round about 10 kg, not easy to do without missing stuff...... legs in , out , in , out. Not always fun.So sometimes i just not even realize what looks better in the field.

In this case , we have been surrounded by a LOT of seals , so i was watching and turning all the time, to find a subject.

Cheers Andreas

[Morkel Erasmus]

Nice behaviour again here Andreas, and a good low angle
Ditto the dark mouth, otherwise it looks good to me...

[Ignacio Yufera]

Really impressive image, love the low angle and the texture on the fur, would love to see it in a larger version. Like the soft light and the diffused FG, too.