what can be better

I took this shot last weekend on a dive at the gold coast seaway in Australia. I like the shot but I am sure that their is things that I can improve.

Hi Matt,

Nice pic. I'd try a horizontal crop to isolate the subject. The out of focus background, esp. in the lower part doesn't do anything for me. I might also try a little dodging of the subject to make it pop more.

Phil

I agree that isolating the subject from the distracting negative space would help. I am unsure if the angle this was shot in would allow you to position the camera a little bit to the left to provide for the separation but, something to think of next opportunity.

Cheers

Todd

G'day Matt. How'd you find diving in the Seaway?

Hi Matt,

I'm curious if this is the format you shot it in or is it a crop of a horizontal? Can you tell us a little more about the camera, lens, etc.?

Steve

hey ryan, diving the seaway is ok but no where near as good as byron.

Steve ,this is a crop of a horizontal shot. The set up I used was a 60mm macro on a nikon d90 and a pair of ys27dx strobes.

This may be more along the lines of what Phil and Todd are talking about; essentially 'inverting' the image to draw attention to the subject. done quickly in PS using Screen and Multiply layers, but of course ideally done in camera with your lighting.

A horizontal image might be more exciting cropped like this, if the part to the right is dark:

I've cropped your image as it stands, and taken the red out of the darker areas to accentuate the colour contrast. What do you think?

Tim

great suggestions guys. It just shows their are lots of ways to shoot the same image.

Thanks for everyones help