Judges Comments

An interesting shot. Wouldn't quite make the Nature category because of the footprints but well captured. There are a couple of problems.
Most of the frame is occupied by sand and water and the seal head is on the vertical centreline and the body on the horizontal one.
That makes for a fairly static design. I'd try cropping some of the sand and a bit of the water, then move the seal a bit to the left.
The next thing I'd do is try to get some texture into the fur. You can do this by selecting just the seal and doing some
judicious sharpening. Don't sharpen the sand as well or it'll look awful. (I think you've already sharpened the
shot all over, leaving a halo around the seal which we don't want). Good effort.