We are happy to announce that the winner of the RSDS Photo Competition for July 2022 has been chosen. Congratulations to Gennady Elfimov with his photo "Early swim".
Gennady wins a free stay at the RSDS village of his choice. You can view the winning photo, and all the July 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 Gennady, and good luck to all those participating in the coming months!
From Paul Duxfield, our competition judge:
This month was a relatively easy choice and in my opinion there was always one very clear winner but thats not without mentioning a shot that I really loved that with a couple of tiny tweaks would have been in with a chance.
Of course it’s always best to try and get the best picture you can in camera at the time, but there's no harm if the competition allows, and this one does, in making some minor adjustments before sending it in to be judged. I know that not everyone agrees but sometimes a picture can be really elevated with some post editing.
I’m talking about Mathieu Cornillon who was in with the running last month, and this month also, but please keep entering Mathieu as your shot of a Longimanus is really well executed, perfectly lit, lots of surface suggestion. If you’d removed the line with Content Aware in Photoshop or another editing program and given the shark a bit more room to breathe by having more area around it then it would have been in with a very good chance and my decision would have been a lot more difficult. You can increase the room round a subject with the magic of Content Aware cropping in Photoshop and this would have been easily achieved in this case.
Ok onto the winner now.
And it ticked every box both compositionally and technically. You've got a very well lit, subject, the turtle, against a dappled light background with the beams emerging from behind the turtle, you've also got a snorkeler on the surface, and the reef diagonally placed to balance the shot. Perfect in every way, very well done Gennady, your perseverance and patience has definitely paid off here. Well done.
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 13-20 2023 - full information.
