Elephant Seal Flipping Sand - Detail

[BillTyler]

Elephant seals on the beach periodically dig down with their flippers and toss sand over their backs. This seal is in the midst of a flip.

Canon 5Dmk3, Canon 500mm f/4 with 1.4x extender
1/320 f/11, ISO 200

[Gabriela Plesea]

Hi Bill, a very interesting capture and great angle:S3: I personally would have liked the flippers to be sharper although my guess is, your intention was to achieve this overall effect of motion blur. I might have chosen a higher ISO, the flipper is such an attractive focal point with those long claws. I am very interested what the others have to say, this is indeed an intriguing image and I have looked at it quite a few times today- arty and inspiring, it left me wondering as well as passionately interested in creating more images that force the audience to think. I certainly look forward to more posts from you!

Kind regards,

[Morkel Erasmus]

Certainly is dynamic, Bill.
I do appreciate what you were going for. I like the way the sand is blurred in an arc. I also don't mind the flipper being blurred from the motion. What I do rue is the fact that the body looks to have suffered from the slow SS...having the bulk behind the action sharper/steadier would have gone some way into taking this photo up another notch IMHO...:e3...as it is it's not here nor there for me personally...and in an ideal world the bit of "other seal" in the bottom left corner would have been evicted.

Let's see what others say...

[Nancy Bell]

I love the idea of this image. The flying sand is great! I especially like that curved edge of sand towards the right. For me I would like to see a bit more of the elephant seal for more context. I do agree with Morkel about the need for more visual depth/sharper details on the main body.