Seals & Cape Gull

[ken dyball]

This shot was taken on my latest trip to Namibia, Cape Cross is on the skeleton coast west side of Africa, it's bloody Freezing!! the fog rolls in and you swear its raining, thousands of seals gather here & its quite amazing, i rolled around in Seal poo & wiz for a few days to get this one!!

Nikon D700, 400mm 2.8 VR
1/500, F/6.3

www.africanatureimages.com

[Geoff Warnock]

It was worth the effort Ken, I really like the species contrast

[Jeff Dyck]

Ken - I really like this shot - the seals make a fantastic background. To my eye, the whites in the bird look pretty hot - it it were mine I would try to recover some of that highlight detail and perhaps cut down the overall contrast a bit.

[Hilary Hann]

Worth the rolling around 'in it', love the contrast between the gull and the seals. Great choice of crop. Would agree with Jeff re the whites.

[Dan Brown]

Really like the idea of using the seals as a BG Ken! Very creative and different!

[Marc Mol]

The clustered seal colony makes for a fine BG here Ken, with the pano crop and placing of the gull working well.
TFS

[Morkel Erasmus]

fine work here Ken! are the whites on the gull edging on the hot side? difficult to say with the monitor I'm viewing on...either way I would tone down the highlights slightly and maybe run some NR on the OOF part of the BG.

I need to get to Namibia again...

[Harshad Barve]

excellent image for all reasons said above
TFS

[Katie Rupp]

This is a really great take of Cape Cross; I've been there and thank goodness it was breezy that day:p I like your vision; it's unusual and very effective.

[Andrew Aveley]

great work and gives me great food for thought. 2011 it me and these fellas! NR on bg and little recocer and this is top shot!