We are happy to announce that the winner of the RSDS Photo Competition for February 2022 has been chosen. Congratulations to Elena Jaeger with her photo.
Elena wins a free stay at the RSDS village of her choice. You can view the winning photo, and all the February participants here.
If you would like a chance to win, simply register on our website and upload your photos from our competition page. Each day we choose a 'photo of the day' from the selection of entries. Anyone can register on our website and vote on photos entered into the competition. At the end of the month our Photo Pro and photography workshop leader, Paul ‘Duxy’ Duxfield, looks at the votes and chooses a winner from the highest scoring photos. Full terms and conditions and prize details are available here.
Congratulations again to Elena, and good luck to all those participating in the coming months!
From Paul Duxfield, our competition judge:
This month’s choices were quite frustrating. I say this because I got a bit disappointed as there were quite a few that were in with a good chance of being in the running for a win, but they were let down with easily solved small adjustments at either the taking stage or the editing stage.
So i’m going to be a little critical this month so I hope some of you wont be offended and take it as the constructive criticism it is.
And then i'm going to tell you which was my favourite, after picking those that I thought could have been great but failed at the final hurdle.
Lukasz turtle with a couple of remorras would have been a contender, but for the fact that the turtle is pointed away, and yes I know it’s on a night dive, but it’s just too dark.
If you’d waited for the turtle to be more head on, and maybe composed it with the diagonal with the creature pointing towards the top of the shot rather than looking down, it would have been a lot more dynamic. Other than this it was technically ok, just a few tiny things to make it a winning picture.
Paula Jozwiak’s lone Clownfish, is a great and cleverly composed shot, but it’s just not quite sharp enough, or its been cropped too heavily I’m not sure.
Wael’s shot of the Anthias surrounding soft coral is a typical Red Sea scene, but its a little messy, next time you can ’train’ the Anthias by making a sound like a cough, or clicking your fingers and the Anthias will all shoot into the reef and then come out a second later all pointing in the same direction, which is when you take the shot.
It’s something I regularly show people how to do on my workshops whilst underwater, it’s easy give it a try next time you're on a dive.
I also think that the editing of this picture could have been improved by bringing down the highlights and whites a bit in your editing software, as it’s a little over exposed.
Please don’t be upset if I’ve mentioned your picture, it’s because I liked it but it just fell short and this is why I got frustrated.
My winning choice this month is Elena Jaeger’s lovely sweeping curve of glassfish hugging the top of a reef.
The curve is dynamic, as is the symmetry of the fish themselves, well balanced composition, and it’s correctly exposed and focused. A great shot with nothing to mark it down.
Well done, I love it.
Duxy has been running escorted photo workshops in Marsa Shagra for the last three years. These workshops are designed for camera users of all experience levels, with any type of underwater camera. Duxy is on hand to share tips and information, troubleshoot individual photography issues, escort early morning and late afternoon dives, and give talks on specific subjects. The Red Sea Photo Camp with Duxy and Alphamarine Photography will be held in Shagra from June 11-22 2022 and June 13-20 2023 - full information.
