Grey seals play

I've said many times that I envy animals their sense of freedom, their ability to live in the moment. Unlike us, they don't contemplate their own mortality, they don't pre-visualilze the end of their own life. This photograph captures that feeling perfectly for me.

Looking at this photograph, I get the same feeling as when I watch a hawk fly over, or see a deer bound through the woods...a feeling of "I wish I could do that", or "Why can't I have that much fun?"

There's no doubt in my mind that animals experience a sense of fun. I believe animals laugh, too, it's just that humans with their limited and degraded senses don't recognize it when they see or hear it.

This photograph metaphorically gets the idea across that there's more to life than what we humans experience. There's nothing fancy or planned about this photograph, there's no excess of processing. Like the animals it shows, the photograph simply "is", and it works for me very well. I also love the almost-upside down look into the lens by the one seal.

Congratulations to the photographer for the POTW.

I agree, the photo simply "is" and there seems not much to critique as it is entirely adequate in showing what it shows. However, having said this, it does not have any extra aesthetic appeal or exceptional impact that demands anything other than a "so this is what Gray seals look like when playing or mating" reaction. If these seals in themselves provide enough interest to the viewer, the photo works.

Well said, Jim. I too like the image. Although I - like others - try to avoid anthropomorphizing animals, I can't help but think that some animals experience emotion. They can't express it in words, but they can do so in other ways. This photograph very well may rest on that idea, and the seal on the right seems to be experiencing, and showing, unabashed joy.

Thanks, Dave, for a visual treat.

I always enjoy shots of animals at play, which I infer from this shot by the 'laughter' of the bottom seal (well, and the title). Both seals are exhibiting poses that anyone who's ever owned a dog (and perhaps cat) has witnessed, and in seeing such, reminds us of the common link joining all wildlife, including humans.

Technically, I think the DOF is just right. On my monitor at work, I can't make out the left eye of the bottom seal, so perhaps some lightening of shadows would have brought that out more, though the mouth and poses are the more significant elements of the shot. Like Jim, I especially like the appearance of the bottom seal peering into the lens, as though it knows it's being photographed.

I don't know that it's one of the more spectacular wildlife shots I've seen, but it would definitely be a keeper for me.

I wish I had taken it.
Envy must be one measure of how good an image is, I suppose -- even though it's a deadly sin. ;)

It OK but a little confusing probably because of the compression due to the telephoto. The compression adds out of focus surf that adds to the confusion. The two little splashes at the back of the left seal don't seem to belong. Is the seal on the left biting or resting on the other seal? It would be better to see the left eye on the right seal. It would be better to see the nose of the left seal being blocked by the wave. The lighting is flat and boring. Seems more like a snapshot.

Might not be a snapshot, but does not tell me much. I would not come back to it, or remember it, after the first glance. Next !

Two seals frolicking in a rather drably-lit photo. The seals seem excited and the photo doesn't.

I don't see it as "confusion" at all. I call it good depth of field, and it isn't necessarily due to lens compression. I get the same effect (and it's an effect I often try for) when shooting wide open with a Canon 70-200mm f/2.8 lens. A photograph doesn't need tack sharp focus from foreground to infinity to be effective. The seals, not the surf, are the subjects of this photograph, and the photographer has done a fairly good job of isolating them. They're what makes the photo interesting, not the little curls of foam or wayward drops of water.

Well, you kinda can't program the ocean to do what you want it to do for photographic purposes. You either take the shot or you don't. The little splashes are there. They belong. That's what the ocean does...it makes splashes. Big ones, little ones, splashes of all sizes.

Personally, I'd have been happy to have made this photograph. It isn't perfect by any means, but it's a good effort. Plus, it makes me smile.

I'm like Jim Adams, I don't see any relevance in this comment about "out of focus surf". That's the way

your own eye sees it as well, if you're looking at those seals in real life, and you have them in focus,

then your eye also has "the ocean out of focus." When photographs become "boring", is when the

photographer makes them UN-natural by putting everything in the frame "into" focus. Your eye, your

optic nerve, and your brain don't work that way and don't see it that way when you're live and on the

spot.

Whether the photograph is a "great" photo or not is maybe a different question, and one I'm not going to

make a comment on. But the two things photographers (and "auto" cameras) now do over-and-over-and-

over which are un-natural, are they put everything in the frame "in focus", and they mish-mash

everything into "shadows you can see into, and no blown-out highlights". In nature, your eyes and brain

are always dealing with deep shadows you cannot see into, and highs so bright you can't look at them.

Having the foreground and background out of focus, is the way your eye would see it if you'd been there.

Those two "things in back" incidentally, appear to be the tips of a flipper. wet, reflecting light, and out of

the depth of field..

As Robert points out, they are most likely the tips of flippers and not splashes. But, let's say they were splashes, Alan's and Jim's points both are worth considering, IMO. A viewer is perfectly fine not to think a natural splash from the ocean works in a photo, even if it is natural and ocean-ic. There are plenty of trashed surfer photos, I'm sure, even if the surfer looks great, but the wave doesn't quite work for the photo. On the other hand, how much weight a not perfect splash is given in what one might consider an otherwise really good photo (and I don't in this case) is worth considering. If I liked this photo more, and if those were, indeed, splashes that weren't quite perfect, I don't think I'd mind at all. But there could be plenty of splashes, even if the seals were doing the exact same thing, that I could see ruining the shot. So, the fact that the ocean does it naturally doesn't mean it will make for good photograph material. At the same time, allowances can certainly be made for action shots and nature's spontaneity.

I'm not confused by the photo and don't think seeing more of their body parts would make much difference to me for this particular shot. The depth of field seems fine to me. I'd like to see some photographic qualities (in terms of light, movement, texture, sparkle, spectral highlights, color, or even unusual and more interesting perspective) that could reflect and enhance the behavior and expressions of the seals.

The seals' eyes look dead. Some more and better catch lights would help.

Fred G sums it up.; "I'd like to see some photographic qualities (in terms of light, movement,

texture, sparkle, spectral highlights, color, or even unusual and more interesting perspective)

that could reflect and enhance the behavior and expressions of the seals."

It's a family-album snapshot of a mother and baby seal,but it's not a "photograph". There is a

vast difference between those two things.

Sure looks like a photograph to me, but what do I know?

The dictionary defines photograph as "a picture made using a camera, in which an image is focused onto film or other light-sensitive material and then made visible and permanent by chemical treatment, or stored digitally."

Maybe it doesn't meet your philosophical definition of a photograph, but it's a photograph just the same. But instead of debating semantics, please tell us what defines a snapshot as opposed to a photograph...or as opposed to a so-called "real" photograph. Does an image have to meet certain criteria before it's officially classified as a photograph? Does it have to have a certain level of artistic or technical merit?

I'm just curious about all this terminology, because I may have redefine myself and decide if I'm a real photographer or just someone wandering through life with a camera making "snapshots".

But I freely admit I'm guilty of making snapshots now and then. Snapshots are photographs and they're often fun to make. Every photograph can't be oh-so-perfect. Where's the fun in that? This image invokes a sense of fun, regardless of what definition you try to tack onto it.

If we are to stay away from semantics, which I agree with you, Jim, is a good idea, Robert quoted my comment about the photo and it seems he and I see it similarly and are not very engaged for the same reasons. If you have particular disagreements with this critique, I'd love discussing some of these things. That would be a great use of this forum.

Jim. I too will take "snapshots", for my own use. The work I do for clients and or any work I

would submit to publication has to meet a totally different level of imagery than the ones i

record strictly for my own amusement and my own "keepsakes".

Re what is the difference between a snapshot and a photograph, there is an organization

called the Professional Photographers of Canada. To gain accreditation you go through a

long process in which you face a very serious set of judging criteria. Regardless of what the

dictionary says about the word, the working professionals in that organization don't call

themselves "snap shotters", the call themselves "photographers", and they judge the

difference between those two things on a very demanding set of standards. When you

submit work for "judging" you will receive an absolute no-holds-barred critique. There is no

"nicety" in that judging process, it is strict and demanding. Your work has to show a

consistently high level of understanding of lighting angles, composition,. etc etc etc.

The "snapshot" in question under review at the moment, would meet none of those

standards. It's a nice "family album snapshot" of a mother and baby seal, but it has none of

the qualities it would take to be accepted by a professional organization or a "wildlife

magazine" for example. It has nothing going for it in terms of photographic "impact", it has

no dynamic to the lighting, it has no "punch".

Two or three of the people who posted the first responses to it said it all....they said "nice

snapshot, but i wouldn't turn the page back for a second look at it."

I, as an individual who enjoys nature, would have enjoyed being at the photographer's side

on the walk, would have taken some 'snapshots' of it as well, but that's what they would

have been, they would have been 'snapshots'.

There is no "niceness" about a professional critique, you're not judging the photographer's

personality, or whether he/she likes nature or whether you like nature, you're judging the

photograph, nothing more, nothing less.

Frankly, Fred, I disagree with just about everything you say about this photograph.

The thing about it being "drably lit" for example. If you're shooting exteriors on location, you don't always get to pick and choose your lighting conditions, especially when photographing wildlife in their own environment. This isn't a studio shot where you have absolute control over every facet of the photo. This could have been an overcast day, what I call an f/4 day. Regarding the lack of movement, the movement is stopped by pressing the shutter, as evidenced by the droplets of water flying through the air. The movement is there, if only as a suggestion of movement. If the photographer had wanted to show movement, he could have easily slowed the shutter speed, but that apparently isn't what he was going for.

Texture? I see plenty of texture in the seals' skin. I see detail in the seals' whiskers and teeth, detail in the top seal's flipper.

If you're photographing wildlife, you might get only one shot. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. I know I've had more failures than successes. It wouldn't surprise me at all if this photograph wasn't just a lucky shot. And it doesn't appear to have had a lot of post-shoot processing applied to it.

You can't go back and shoot it over. The only way to "improve" this photograph is to work on it with some image processing software. But why bother. It's a simple, fairly ordinary photograph that works on a basic level. The more you work on it, the more you'd be taking away from the simple and effective reality of it.

I could probably say more about this, but except for a couple of comments to other people here, I'm gonna let it go. I'm pretty much done with this, and I'm tired of being accused of "picking fights" and "being confrontational" just because I disagree with other people on this and other forums.

The photographer was using a 500mm lens at f/5 and ISO 500 on what looks to have been an overcast day. Possibly hand held. Lots of grays all over. I've no idea of camera-to-subject distance, but I'd guess the use of a 500mm lens would indicate a good distance, and negate the use of a dedicated on-camera flash. You're nitpicking, not critiquing. I mean, you can't tell the seals to turn their faces more into the light, now can you? And unless you have a whole bunch of money, you aren't going to wade out into the surf carrying x-thousands of dollars worth of Canon gear just to get a better angle, are you? So please tell me how you would go about getting better catchlights in the seals' eyes under these circumstances.

You're a really good photographer, I like a lot of your work, and I love it that you're still shooting film (especially with the Mamiya), but come on...the lack of catchlights here is totally inconsequential...not even worth mentioning.

Just as an aside, I wouldn't mind seeing a bit more light in the seals' eyes, myself...but I'm not going to nitpick a fairly decent photograph to death because of the lack of catchlights.

All I can say in response, Jim, is I've shot in San Francisco on plenty of overcast days (we have more of them than not) and it can be wonderful light to shoot in. Not shooting in the studio does not make everything shot a good photo because it captured what was there at the time. Some street shots are good (and captured what was there) and some are not good (and also captured what was there). Same for nature shots, wildlife shots, landscape shots, and even portraits done outside a studio. My thinking is that interesting and compelling photos are rare. And a lot usually has to come together to make a photo in some way engaging to me. I just don't feel that's happened here. I certainly haven't accused you of "picking fights" and appreciate your answer. I accept a healthy disagreement and like hearing your take on the photo, especially because it's different from mine.

Jim: Thanks for your comments but I have to tell you most of my pictures fail for one reason or another. The viewer doesn't care about my problems in getting a good shot. A couple of weeks ago I spent hours driving around a refinery trying to get a clear shot of the smoke stacks against a blue sky. Just couldn't get the shot I wanted, no clearance without other garbage in the shot. So I took no pictures. Had I taken one, it would have been crap and I would deservedly receive a lousy critique had I posted it. What would I say? "Yeah, the picture isn't too good because I couldn't get close enough. They wouldn't let me through the gate to get a clear shot"

A picture must stand on its own. No point wasting time trying to explain away the problems. The viewer doesn't care. I know I hate to throw out any of my pictures. My energy, pride, time and ego are invested. Most people feel the same way. But it requires discipline to discard parts of ourselves; not excuses. If you make excuses your photography suffers and you don't try to get past the reasons for the problem and then repeat them. You learn little. I apologize to the photographer of this photo because mostly these comments are for me.

I took Alan's point to be one of the features that is lacking that, if it were there, would transform this workmanlike photo into something special. From my perspective, I agree with him. It's not the photographer's fault of course. To some, this stuff is nitpicking, but to others they are things to point out that might improve the picture, whether they were possible to remedy or not.

Birds do it, bees do it, even educated pleased do it, so please go out and play. The photo is about activity that has no purpose, which is the great phenomenon in nature. Moreover I learned that ocean works IN this photo, splashes work FOR this photo and I expected that something will not work for ME.

This one has perfect timing.. Very emotional picture..