Garter Snake - studio portrait

[Steve Maxson]

This baby Common Garter Snake (Thamnophis sirtalis) was about 8 inches long and was found by my daughter. She was holding it while I was taking photos in my lightbox setup. 7D, 100 mm macro, 1/250, f/16, ISO 100, 2 remotely fired flashes. RAW file processed in CS5 and NIK Viveza 2. I used Viveza to fine-tune brightness and contrast in selected areas of the snake's head. All comments are welcome and appreciated.

[jack williamson]

Outstanding IQ. Perfect exposure, love the tongue.

Jack

[Hazel Grant]

ditto .
focus on the eye clear, tongue great.

brave daughter!

[Brendan Dozier]

Well done, Steve, excellent IQ, comp, and processing. Love the texture and tongue is great touch. I have to try this studio set-up soon!

[bhavya joshi]

Fanta click... Steve, Love the Half tongue, but you can get full flicking tongue..

[Ken Childs]

Hey Steve, it's nice to see a reptile shot in this setup! It's also really nice that you have a helper! Lighting looks great as does the timing of the shot. Very well done! :cheers:


I can hardly wait for spring so more critters will be available to shoot in the box.:S3:

[Jerry van Dijk]

Hi Steve, this is an excellent portrait. I might consider a pano crop, to accentuate the snake's elongated body shape. My preference would be to crop from the top (I always like 16:9 ratios with these frames), but adding canvas to the right and adding some space for the snake to look into may work well too. Excellent work!

[John Chardine]

Superb Steve. Image highlights mentioned above but I will add that I just love the texture of the plates/scales on the head as rendered in your image. The lightbox produces really pleasing light with the highlights perfectly exposed.