31 thoughts on “mattias ormestad – psychedelic wrasse”

  1. Patricia Lay-Dorsey

    Here I go, gushing again. But I can’t help it. This photo is breathtaking in its color, clarity and the wonderfully unexplected reflection of the fish on the surface of the water. I speaks to me of the mysterious depths of the sea and all forms of life that call water their home.

    Such a change from yesterday’s heartbreaking evidence of lives thrown out of balance by forces beyond their control!

    Patricia

  5. jesus

    Oh come on patricia, stop kissing David’s ass, always the same thing in every post, jesus.
    As for the photo, its a photo of a fish, nothing special about it.

  6. Jason Houge

    Do you know how hard it is to keep glass that clean in a salt water tank to take a photo like this?
    I like the Wrasse. It reminds me of photos in NGM when talking about species in danger or highlighting an invasive species.

  7. JA(almighty)C

    Jesus, your comment takes me back to Sunday School and a little ditty we used to sing – “all things bright and beautiful, all creatures great and small (even DAH’s ass), the Lord God loves them all”.

    Everyone has a different perception and perhaps Patricia just sees the beauty in nature and feels refreshed by not just another morbid global issue. To that I congratulate her.

    I find myself mesmerized by this exotic fish and its luminescence. The image as a whole seems a little mysterious, however, does not do it for me as my tastes lie elsewhere.

    Mattias, it’s great to see a submission with a difference; thinking outside the square.

  10. chris bickford

    Nicely executed; looks like it belongs in NatGeo…

    I have to scroll down to see the whole picture on my 14″ MacBook though. I’m sure it looks great on a big screen, but unfortunately I can’t get the full effect…

    What is a wrasse anyway, and what should I know about this fish? Is it endangered?

  11. Eric Espinosa

    Yes nicely executed but a fish is so boring!!! Sorry, my level of interest for this kind of photographs despite the obvious great know-how of the photographer is very VERY low!!!!

    Eric

  12. panos skoulidas

    Eric,
    I’m covered…
    Loved the reflection though!!
    Crop that mother… Halfway and
    you got me…!
    But……

  13. John Huber

    I think we fool ourselves into thinking we know what we like and how we think, even how we will react to each other. In fact we don’t know and shouldn’t know instance to instance how things will go. This photo was greatly executed and leaves us in awe of mother nature. Yes, I will say ‘us’ because it should I think highly of others. My sloppy logic/language is due to 1) such a rash harsh reaction to Patricia’s comment. Perhaps joke? I hope. 2) The idea that this photo could just be a picture of a fish. It isn’t. It doesn’t have to be creatively executed. It is. That reflection is misleading the color and light glows. The black is very much so. Is it that there is so much on the internet that leads to a dismissive cynicism. Jim, I’m thinking of your ready dismissal. Sorry, but some constructive criticism is always helpful and the reciprocation of which helps us all.

  15. Eric Espinosa

    John,

    From my standpoint, there is really no cynicism. I am actually in admiration of the photographer “know-how” as I have said. The light, the reflection, the quality of the shot are amazing wihout a doubt. There is no way I would have a clue myself how to take such a picture so, much respect for what Mattias is able to do….but at the end, subject matters to me a lot. I look at the great technique but the picture does not generate any emotion in me…it becomes a test case on how to take a perfect fish picture but it fails to go beyond for me as I do simply not relate to the topic…. I would wish for Mattias to use his talent that is there for a subject that touches me more…. I like mother nature but prefer humans :):):)..

    Eric

  16. Josh Wentz

    I also don’t get too excited about wildlife pictures, but I am attracted to abstracts pretty often and I like a good composition. My monitor doesn’t show the whole image either, but scrolling up and down I get the impression that the excess black at the top and bottom provides something nice and unexpected here, composition-wise. Looking at the closer horizontal crop on my screen, though, to me it comes across as just some really well done picture of a fish.

  17. unevolved neanderthal

    Quite a sophisticated picture. Clearly no accident. To Say ‘its a picture of a fish” is both true and blinkered, at the same time. Its appeal to me is that it clearly is NOT that which it is. im not suggesting that its in any way purposely magritte-esque, but on one level ‘I’ do read it that way. But mainly I just think its a very well made picture, that just happens to have a fish in it. Would have it on my wall in a new york minute.
    john

  18. Jim Powers

    John, it’s a technically well executed photo. But so what? Technical competence is common.I am speaking from the perspective of being a competent technician with photography myself. I’ve done it so long that I know how to make a photo look like I want it to look. But it’s easy to make a spectacular subject spectacular. The struggle, the art, is to make the commonplace spectacular. I simply have no interest in photos of fish. It’s a great NatGeo photo, but I don’t look at photos of fish in NatGeo, I just turn past them. I’m more interested in people. So there’s my bias.

  23. erica mcdonald

    ok yes, it is a fish and I am not a fan of nature photography, but when I saw it, I saw the excellent execution yes..and beyond that I SEE sadness and death. The weight and curve of this little guy’s body DESPITE the buoyancy of the water..the isolation, his own reflection as his only companion, his stillness makes me feel even sadder still..his little mouth looks like he could speak a thousand sorrows..that’s what I see and I ain’t lying!

  24. James Chance

    Yeah its just a fish, but it is a nice one!

    My reaction was positive on first viewing, mainly because it was a surprise and different to what we often see here. I’m all for that.

    James

  27. alun severn

    I think I like it. What seems arresting about it (to me at any rate) is that it *isn’t* a nature or a wildlife picture… Although it is a fish, it’s also somehow a bit more mysterious than that.

  28. david alan harvey

    JESUS…

    what a cruel thing to say….i am so sorry i missed this the first time around….and not even with your real name…what the hell??? what a loser!! Patricia sees the good in everyone and everything…too bad you are not as fortunate as her…

  30. Mattias Ormestad

    To me the subject doesn’t really matter, and here it happened to be a fish. I just want to make good looking and interesting photos, not pleasing Eric or Jim… No offense! ;)

  31. jenny lynn walker

    At first I was excited. How it filled the frame from top to bottom – an apparition from the future – slowly unveiling itself into: a fish?! I was NOT expecting a fish! But give it time and there’s so much more, like the natural world itself… perfection, harmony, balance… a living planet basking in the sun…

    If I hold my hand over the reflection, I feel contented if a little bit lonely and confined, and a mystery with my hand over the fish. It’s sad that the fish can’t see it’s perfect reflection. It looks like a return to ‘the universe’ in the future, and mysteriously ‘beautiful’.

    On the other hand, it’s just another fish… and we are only human.

    Mattias: I wish you would think about changing the title!!!

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