Snake Eyes

This is one of the last animals I thought I would see during our Montana winter. But the weather was 50F or 10C to the rest of the world. This Garter snake was basking in the sun(clouds) on my back deck. Glad they are poikilotherm's (I think that is the term).

I had to get out my sleeping pad to lie on to get most of the pictures. Canon 7D with a 50mm Macro and 12mm macro tube. So most were taken from only a few inches away. As you can see the DOF was small. A sunny day would have been better but the snake would have been much faster and less cooperative.

C&C always appreciated.

http://risingwolf.smugmug.com/Nature...45_5aSjJ-L.jpg

http://risingwolf.smugmug.com/Nature...26_K7WPj-M.jpg

http://risingwolf.smugmug.com/Nature...53_EtqDM-M.jpg

http://risingwolf.smugmug.com/Nature...23_Fz2WN-L.jpg

http://risingwolf.smugmug.com/Nature...61_AXULr-L.jpg

Ssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssswell shots!

It is unusual to see a snake out and about in winter but if you are going to get face to fang to shoot one a poikilotherm gopher snake is the way to go. I had to look up that term and you have it correct. I was more familiar with ectotherm.

Chuck

Am viewing this on my work Tablet PC, so can't comment on colour. But, compositionally, #1 is, for me, a beauty. As you say, DoF, is small. But I don't think that's an issue. We can see that the body stretches out into the background and the shallow DoF focuses our attention on the head.

I agree with the other comments. No.1 gets my top vote with the curl of the tongue in the image plane being echoed by the curl of the body on the ground. There's a term in the art world for this type of compositional device but I can't remember it. However, great shot.

Cheers

David

Thanks for the comments. Trying to focus while lying on the ground was very difficult.I wanted to use the live view but that was very awkward. The only time the snake would use his tongue is when I would rub the body. I needed more hands, one to hold the camera, one to focus and another to move the snake around. Glad it was not a poisonous species. It did strike at the lens many times until it got used to being moved around.