On a recent trip to Alaska, I witnessed the annual Herring Spawn. In and around Sitka and Petersburg, herring come to lay their eggs in the Spring in and around shorelines. Their arrival is greeted by many predators which include bubble net feeding whales, eagles, seal lions, seals and otters.
On a short trip onshore, I did some macro photography and found this dead herring at the top of the tide line. I liked how the herring was positioned in the sea weed which was covered with eggs from successful spawners.
The story telling detail for me is the coating of eggs on the seaweed, and specifically those shallow intertidal seaweeds. Nicely conceived. I’ve been seeing this phenom for over 40 years and never thought to photograph it. I’m not sure how to accomplish it, but the only suggestion I can make is to achieve a little more detail in both the herring and the eggs to help emphasize the story-telling aspect.
A great story, and the image tells it well, Richard. Can the eggs survive for any length of time out of the water? I like the diagonal line of the fish and all those eggs are a wonderful part of the image. Well done.
Dennis: yes, the eggs can survive a tide cycle. The eggs are however open to predation by birds when exposed at low tide. I took a short plane ride while in Alaska. It was not uncommon to see shorelines occupied with hundreds of gulls who were busy eating herring as well as herring eggs.
Thanks, Richard.
Richard, this is a fine job of story telling with the fish, the eggs and the seaweed. I agree with Hank’s suggestions and thought I’d try my hand burning and dodging using luminosity masks. Here’s the result. If you don’t use luminosity masks, Tony Kuyper’s web site is a good place to learn for both Photoshop and PS Elements. If you use other processing software, a web search may find directions for your particular software. In this case, I burned-in the bright parts of the fish using what I call the L2 mask (that is the base lights mask multiplied by itself). I dodged the surroundings using that same mask, to increase the brightness of the brightest parts with minimal effect on the darker parts. This provides enhanced contrast in the surroundings as it reduced contrast in the fish and decreases the brightness of the fish. The extra contrast in the eggs is subtle while the darkening of the fish is fairly strong. For a side-by-side comparison, it’s best to open both version in separate windows and switch back and forth.
The adjustments nail it for me Mark. The violets in the herring are quite accurate and telling for the species.
Mark: thanks for the comment and your re-work. I’m a user of TK actions, but hadn’t applied it to this photo. I like what you did with the eggs. My take on the fish is that the adjustment is a bit too strong. Going by memory of some freshly jigged herring (which wound up in the skillet), those fish were quite silvery and showed only a bit of coloration when held just so in the light. I guess the LED that I wore brought out that coloration. In any event, we’re talking about personal preferences and yours is different than mine. So be it 
Richard
Hi Richard, very interesting capture with all the eggs easily seen on the vegetation. Really tells the story well. I’m not familiar with this species first hand so can’t comment on the color. I do like the diagonal of the fish in the frame.