Reply To: Boring Image of a Pretty Red Sponge, Sipadan-Kapalai, Malaysian Borneo

[Nicolas]

Hi Murray,

Interesting considerations on the “traditional way” to approach underwater photography vs unconventional approaches.

I plead guilty to often abide by the traditional approach, where your artificial lights reveal colours that don’t exist in the wild, and that adequately camouflaged critter now appears a little silly, because it happens to stand out so much with its vivid colours. Such photos I feel are more about colour palettes and an intriguing subject, than they are about natural history.

That being said, I do appreciate the other approach, where you’re challenging the viewer to find your subject. In fact I love images which take a while to fully “read through” multiple layers/aspects. I really like this photo as it takes a while – but not too long – to see the frogfish (good on you to place the eye on one of the 4 power points – the viewer instantly scans each of these). If it was my image, I’d probably vignette it a little bit to tune down the edges, but it works as it is.

Like @rschifreen said, different images for different audiences / purposes. Photos which make an excellent double-pager on a magazine are rarely the same which win contest prizes, and there are more usages / scenarios.

Don’t get me started on social media…. 😀

Your photo might be presented to the right “public” and they will celebrate it accordingly, but in truth we have zero control on what Facebook/Instagram choose to show or not show in other people’s feeds. The photographic merits receive the least consideration in this equation.

• This reply was modified 1 year, 10 months ago by  Nicolas Remy.