These are southern elephant seals I captured on South Georgia Island on my way down to Antarctica. With this kind of interaction between animals, movement can occur faster than you think. Therefore, I like to use a shutter speed fast enough to make sure everything is tack sharp. I was laying on the beach when I took this shot so I'd be below eye level. This kind of low angle of shooting gives greater stature to the animals and makes them seem more impressive. My settings were 1/500, f/8, and 250 ISO. I used a Canon 500mm f/4 telephoto, and that meant the overcast, light sky was out of focus due to shallow depth of field. Therefore, I replaced the sky to add some interest to the picture. As much as out of focus backgrounds direct attention to a subject and eliminate unwanted elements behind the subject, in many cases I find images more compelling when everything is sharp.
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