I am terrified of snakes. Intellectually I know that most of them are harmless, especially where I live, but that knowledge doesn’t really help when I’m confronted with one. My heart pounds, I find it hard to breathe and my body freezes. It’s ridiculous, especially for someone who likes to walk in wildish places. So I’ve recently started to watch snake videos in an attempt to desensitize myself and I’ve now gotten to the point where I can watch a whole video without closing my eyes or cringing (mostly.) Why am I telling you all this? Because today I actually saw a real live snake and stopped to take his picture. I feel so brave. I took several shots, but I was a bit shaky and only one turned out. There was some heart pounding and I’m pretty sure I was holding my breath, but I didn’t freeze. Admittedly this snake was sitting still and not wriggling, but I’m not going to let a little detail like that keep me from feeling good. So now, I proudly present the first snake that I’ve ever said hello to.
©voyager, all rights reserved
What a beautiful beastie! Nice shot, too!
I like snakes. Before I turned to dendrology I was considering study of herpetology, but where I live there are about as many species of reptiles as there are fingers on a very clumsy lumberjack’s hands.
Stripes suit the snake fine. A serious looking serpent, but also cute.
Well done, voyager, you should feel proud! It’s a wonderful shot, I love the focus in this. And what a pretty snake too.
I love snakes, though I do get a bit of an adrenaline rush when I unexpectedly come across one. But it’s not a bad feeling and it’s quickly followed by excitement. I wish they weren’t so afraid of humans, usually I only notice them when they’re wriggling away into dense vegetation. I don’t have many snake photos.
Voyager:
You did great, congratulations! What you wrote ^ that could have been an exact description of me when it came to my first times photographing bees and wasps. I was so *scared*.
It’s a lovely photo, too.
Beautiful snake! Well done, voyager.
How does Jack feel about snakes?
Beautiful snake! Congratulations!
Chigau,
Jack is indifferent to snakes. He doesn’t like it when I panic, but I don’t think he’s made the connection. Good thing, too. Imagine if he caught one!
voyager
I have eaten snake. It tasted sort of not horrible (like chicken), but the whole procurement and processing was quite traumatic.
Dogs aren’t fussy, though. I expect Jack wouldn’t bother with the skinning and cleaning and breading and frying.
Well! Congratulations! And a beauty, as well.
It’s photography that calmed my terror of spiders. Still don like them, but the fascination is greater. I hope you meet many more snakes and take many more portraits, with even less shaking hands. And you might find yourself cringing even less while watching snake films. :)
Well done, voyager
And I’m deeply envious of you having met that snake.
Well done voyager, overcoming irrational fear is hard, to do so well enough to take that photo is impressive.
I don’t mind snakes, but I do have that reaction to spiders I encounter unexpectedly close to me or worst of all on me. I can happily be in the same room as a spider in a web, or crawling round the edges of the ceiling, but if that spider heads out to anywhere near above me I will get worried.
Good job, voyager! Cute snake!
Is it an eastern garter? I’ve never seen a garter snake in shades of yellow and drab green. Don’t worry, I am in no way asking you to go looking through the internet’s snake pictures, just wondering if you happen to know.
It’s kind of awesome to me how putting a lens (in my case a cell phone lens, because I am a terrible photographer) between oneself and a creepy crawly can sometimes briefly suspend the urge to shudder or run away. I have this morbid fascination with large insects and spiders, I do think they are interesting but pushing past fear and revulsion is sometimes a bit much to ask of myself. With pretty much anything that creeps me out but also piques my curiosity, zooming in with a lens allows that feeling of seeing it close up without actually having to get close.
The exception there would be scorpions. Nope.