Emerald
One of my favorite snakes, a green tree python. Its odd that I have a favorite since I am absolutely petrified of all of them....
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One of my favorite snakes, a green tree python. Its odd that I have a favorite since I am absolutely petrified of all of them.
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Oct, 2016Views
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Behind The Lens
Location
This photo was taken in the reptile house at the National Zoo in Washington DC. A place I have a love/hate relationship with ... its a great place for photographs, but I am absolutely petrified of snakes (the presence of glass does not help calm my nerves very much).Time
I parked my car relatively close to the reptile house, so it was one of my first stops for the day. This shot was taken around 10am in spring.Lighting
The reptile house is indoors, so for better or worse, the lighting conditions are always the same.Equipment
This was shot with a Canon 40D, Canon 100mm macro and a circular polarizer. Of all the lenses I have purchased, this is the one that I have kept the longest (approaching 10 years), its such a fun lens and such a different way to look at the world.Inspiration
I have always loved animals, and enjoy going to the zoo to see them. The National Zoo is the best zoo nearby (though 2 hours away from me, when traffic is feeling particularly forgiving) and I often would visit just to see what I can come up with. This was before I knew that I should check the weather before taking photographs (which I later wrote an app to help me not make that mistake again) - and I was forced inside because it ended up being a day of full sun which meant everything outside was lit too harsh to photograph. The trick with zoo photography is making it not obvious that the animal is in an enclosure. With this python wrapped up, I was able to focus on only the snake, and nothing else, so the viewer has no idea where this was taken.Editing
Just did some minor Lightroom adjustments and slightly cropped it down so that the enclosure is not visible, only the snake.In my camera bag
Too much. Generally, I always have the following: Canon 5DSR, Canon 100-400 II, Canon 11-24, Canon 100 macro, Canon 24 TSE II and a backup Canon 7D (and for when focusing quickly is important). Of all that, what I appreciate the most is having a backup camera - there was a single time in my life where the one camera I had failed, and for an entire vacation, I had no photographs to show (this was before phones had a camera worth using). On that vacation, we went on the most unique hike of my life, where a storm had rolled through during later summer and surprisingly had just left ice all over everything. It was breathtakingly gorgeous, but ethereal. All around us, the ice was breaking off and it sounded like glass shattering. Even better, the clouds had not moved off yet, so the entire hike was in a thick fog. Well, the entire hike until we reach the fire lookout tower at the top. The top of the fire tower was just tall enough to be above the clouds, and when we climbed to the top, it was as if the tower was floating in a sea of white. I have never seen anything remotely like it, and words don't do it justice. If only the camera I carried on the hike worked, grrr.Feedback
This photograph was not planned, and just presented itself. You just sometimes get lucky. The funny and irritating part is I have tried recreating this image every time I have visited since (with better equipment), and 9 years later, I haven't been able to pull it off. Either the snake isn't positioned appropriately or the reptile house is absurdly packed (to which, the summer can be absurdly packed with people trying to escape the heat).
