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This almost looks like it was taken underwater... it's great that you got the head turn to dampen the light on the head so all of those details are there. Of course the area on the chest is hot and you are dealing with a big dynamic range here. What time of day was this?

The hard part about photographing seals along the Atlantic Coast is the sun is never really where you want it to be making it hard for a good composition unless you are on a boat or otherwise in the water.

The area of OOF doesn't bother me at all - still impressed you got so close.

Just as a note/warning though, I believe the "legal" distance in NYS from marine mammals is 150'. I've never been challenged on such a thing and clearly the seal was not bothered by your presence - but it is good to be aware of such a restriction.

Hey Luke,
Time was about 11:30am saturday morning and thanks for the NYS info...Never realized they placed limitations on the distance. Still can't believe they didn't just get up and leave! On a future posting you will see a youngster...At least we thought it was a juvenile due to its size...basically swim up to the rock I was sitting on and kept popping it's head up to check us out! It was a good day...

Hi Jerry,

I agree with Luke that at first glance it's easy to think that this is a shot of a seal underwater (making a sharp turn while swimming).

You ask: "Does his(her?) body to the right being OOF hurt the shot?"

Doesn't bother me. To me the shot feels a little dead-centred - if it were mine I'd consider a slightly different crop with a little less room on the right side of the frame and a little more on the left (giving the seal a little more room to look into). Not sure if your original has enough room to support this type of crop, but might be worth experimenting on. The white patches on the side of the neck look a little blown out (over-exposed) to me - if you're comfortable making selective changes to an image (either during raw conversion - if shot raw - or in later stages of post-processing) you might want to tone these down a little (reduce the exposure in these regions).

Cheers...

Brad

Hey Brad, this is uncropped, full frame(?). Basically untouched from the download. It is a RAW file, so I will try to get the blown area a little darker. Have only been doing basic adjustments w/ Aperture. I think my biggest problem is going to be with colors...I'm actually shade-blind!!

I love the pose here Jerry and can understand why Luke says it looks as if it were taken underwater as it resembles a swimming pose. Brad has given you some excellent recommendations which I shall not repeat. Thanks for sharing + looking forward to more.
PS: 'Shade-blind'??? Not sure what exactly that is, but it sounds like a serious restriction when it comes to PP'ing

Thanks for the comments Vincent...Shade Blind is a form of color blindness...I have trouble with greens/browns and reds/oranges.

I agree that it looks a bit like the seal is underwater in a very good way. I think Brad's crop suggestion is a good one since this is full frame but it will make it a bit more squarish which some folks don't like.