Fang Club

How Does This Character Tip The, Er, Scales?

Photograph copyright: DAVID McMAHON

While we were in Malaysia, I suddenly spotted this slender snake on a wooden handrail. It was early in the morning, so maybe he decided to do a bit of foraging before the temperature climbed higher as the sun rose.

This bloke was quite long. I wasn't thinking measurements (I was thinking "Get the camera ready and frame the shot before he slithers away") but I reckon he would have been just under six feet or about 1.8 metres in length.

Luckily the light was good, so I was able to walk past him and take the first shot, with the light across his body and interesting tones across the wooden handrail, as well as the dappled effect of the ocean and the rock on the right.

Then I decided to get a bit closer to take the second shot, to try and capture the light and shadow falling across the colours of his scales. It's really interesting to see how much lighter his underbelly is than the rest of his body - and to see that he had his head raised.

Macro? Er, maybe not. Especially when you consider I didn't know what sort of snake he was. I went off for breakfast - and I suspect he did as well!

If there were two of them, I might have mistaken them for a pair of windscreen vipers.

Check out the rules at Camera Critters or go to Misty Dawn.