We are happy to announce that the winner of the RSDS Photo Competition for March 2025 has been chosen. Congratulations to Francis Glassup with his photo "Critically endangered".
Francis wins a free stay at the RSDS village of his choice. You can view the winning photo, and all the March 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 Francis, and good luck to all those participating in the coming months!
From Paul Duxfield, our competition judge:
Another month of extremes as my two favourite pictures span the range from the very tiny to the very large.
First though I’ve got to mention the shots that I thought were very good but in a change of style I’ll say why I think that they've missed out on the top spot.
It’s not normally my style to criticise, instead preferring to adopt the stance of praising the positives and not talking about the negatives too much. But I thought that this timeI felt a little frustrated because some of the entries were so close to getting placed with only a few very minor issues barring them from a first place that I should share my thoughts in the hope that it will positively encourage those that were close to getting a coveted win.
Ok, Chloé Couerderoy both your entries were great examples of Fish ID shots nicely focused and lit, however I felt that what they missed was some compositional pizazz to elevate them from the norm. In both cases I’d have cropped a little closer, and maybe tried to get a couple of different angles to see what worked best. For instance a more head on shot of the Trunkfish with it occupying more of the frame, also getting lower to separate it more from the background, also maybe a different edit to help take emphasis off of the plain background could have helped.
Conversely the Wrasse doesn't need too much of a tighter crop, maybe just about a third around the outside, and with this fish it works well to keep the sideways framing, but it would stand out a lot more against the colourful background if it occupied more of the frame, and lowering your position would help it stand out a bit more against the blue area.
Stefan Gartner, your moody turtle is beautiful but I think it could have been a little bit improved by making the turtle a little brighter in the edit to separate it from the background a bit, the same advice I’d give to Mick with his Goniobranchus.
Leila your toothy Giant Barracuda would have been improved by just getting lower and framing this smiley fellow a little bit more against the background.
I love the symmetry of Christine Osten’s pair of beautifully lined up Crocodile Fish, and unlike with some of the other shots I would have encouraged you to try and frame a little bit looser with this one as I think they could do with some space to breathe and it seems a little claustrophobic in this instance. This subject could also have benefited with a touch more lighting on it with a strobe, as it's a little too grey and dark.
None of these pictures are bad in fact I think they may have been in with a chance with a few little tweaks and in fact on the Fotofest workshops a lot of the time this is all we are doing, making some minor adjustments to raise everybody’s game a bit.
So back to my first thoughts and my two choices for the top spot.
It was a very close run thing, I love the simplicity and bold composition of both the pictures I chose, but the one that has finally edged it for me is the person who really took a chance by posting it as it breaks one of the cardinal rules of underwater photography.
This shot is one of the very rare occasions that I think the rule breaking was the best choice.
They both have good balance between the primary subject matter and the foreground and backgrounds.
Luisa’s shot of the egg bound shrimp is placed perfectly on a black background on the diagonal, with a gradually softening out of focus foreground, and upon seeing it, I thought that the upcoming shots needed to be very good to beat it.
However a couple of choices later I saw Francis’s tail end shot of a Dugong, and I think it was no fluke (sorry) that it was framed so well. Very equally bilaterally framed left to right with the details on it’s flipper being visible. It wouldn't have worked so well if we’d been able to see any more of it’s body. Great shot and my choice for this month, particularly for breaking the rule of “no tail end shots” which is one of the first things you learn in UW Photo Composition 101.
Well done.
Details for the Fotofest in December can be found here, but in summary all are welcome and we’ll be concentrating on how to make great pictures with whatever type of camera you own. The entire picture pipeline will be covered, from finding subjects ,shooting them, composition and then workflow and editing of your shots post dive. It’ll be lovely to have you along in the chilled out vibe of Marsa Nakari
