My Secret for Photography?

HAPPY LEAP YEAR DAY!!!

I have been doing this a while, and people always ask me how I get such good pictures. Well... It's really a matter of my trying things until it worked.

I shoot with my Panasonic DMC-FZ7, which is already a million years old by now in electronic years...

I shoot with the Simple Mode (the heart) and the flash.

But what really sets me apart?

My whiteboard.

Yeah, that's it right there. Big enough to take most of the largest critters without seeing the border.

It never gets to be the centerpiece of the photo, but it sure does a good job.

And as you can see, I have fluorescent lights in the room.  So I have figured out a way (most of the time) to avoid getting the light reflection in the photo.

The other big secret?

Using the flash.

Here we have a Mojave Pied that I took a photo of with the flash.

And here we have the same animal with out the flash.

I have been trying to figure out a good midway point between both colors, but I have yet to figure it out.

Especially with the white animals, flash is a burden. It takes the color and brightens the whites, but also overexposes the other colors on the animal. It's rather annoying and I am still trying to figure it out. 

Again we have no flash...

And flash..

I don't like the way the shadows work, but I don't have any better way to figure it out yet.

I do not do anything to the photos either.

It's just snap, crop if I need to, and post it up. That's how I roll.

So there you go.

I hope that helps, and eventually when I have a bit more free time, I will get back on the "try to get better pictures" bandwagon.

But right now, I've fallen off.

And that's alright with me.

Have a great day, my friends.

Being Sick

So my voice is back, a sexy scratchy mucous filled voice, but a voice none the less.

I have to say, this has been the second time this season that I have gotten ill, and it is NO FUN AT ALL.

I wish I could say that I took a day off to rest, and was able to clean all of the snakes and took a billion photos.

But I did not.

I just hacked my way thru my workday, coughed my way thru the evening and writing papers, and now, I am just spent.

Last night I did not even walk into the snake room.

I am ashamed of myself.

I have had time, however, to contemplate some photos and possible topics for the next few days, including the one about my photography.

I have touched on this before, and yesterday I did mention my use of the fantastic white board... I shall elaborate on this very soon.

But until then, you will have to read how much being sick sucks, which I really do believe you already know.

Thank goodness Human Colds cannot be transmitted to Snakes, although I would love to use that as the excuse as to why I didn't go into the snake room if it were true.

For the health of the animals, I'd say...

Anyway, I'm rambling.

Suggestions for topics would be appreciated, just because I am working on a few things and my energy levels are minimal for topic picking brain power. 

Have a great day, my friends.

Living with a Voice Lost

It has been a reasonable amount of time since I lost my voice...

However, this occurred very recently and is still the case. I believe it disappeared on Friday night?

Anyway, I woke up on Saturday morning with no problems. Feeling a bit sick, had a cold, no big deal.

Showered, brushed my teeth, got dressed, went out the door, and started on my phone calls for the day while on my way to do some chores.

As soon as I tried to talk (which at this point before I hadn't), it was gone.

Which is doubly terrible because I was trying to talk to a customer. It was rather embarrassing whispering into the phone...

So after I got back and did a few other things, I armed myself with the best tool I could think of to use.

My handy dandy whiteboard and pen. It actually looks similar to this one, really. Nice and small, black trim with a pen holder.

I have plenty of them, and that is what I use most of the time for photo backgrounds for photography sessions for the snakes.

I bought a small one for the babies, but never used it really... until this weekend!

So I went out, did more chores, and communicated with my whiteboard and pen.

A lot of people were thinking that I was a bit odd, which isn't that far from the truth, really, but what did they know???

It was an interesting adventure, and one that many people find odd.

Things I learned:

• Most people need hearing aids, including Joel. 
• Whispering is not the best form of communication in a Mall. 
• People who do not know you are sick and do not have a voice tend to look at you funny for whispering.
• The only time whispering is easily heard is when you are in a car with no music on, and even then, there are no guarantees that they really hear what you say.
• Whispering is easily misconstrued, wherein the whiteboard comes in handy.
• Text messages work too, but make sure your phone doesn't die.

As of right now, I still don't have a voice.

I am a bit concerned about how I am going to conduct business at work today, but... we shall see.

The mighty whiteboard and I will be there.

I just hope my business meetings don't require me to talk.

Have a great day, my friends!

Albinos, Lavender and Regular

I think I have mentioned this before. Lavender Albinos are tough to photograph. 

Yes. Very tough.

Above, we have a photo with no flash. You can see the contrasting colors rather well in this light. 

Below, we have some crappy flash. The Lavender Albino looks dirty...

It is very difficult to get the true colors to show up on a white background with an amateur photographer. 

Maybe if I break open the big ass camera and try again, eh?

Maybe later.. 

 So I decided, "Screw this!" and I took out a regular Albino for comparison.

Voila! 

You can see much better (yet not as good as I would like) the comparison between the Albino (the larger one) and the Lavender Albino (the not so larger one).

You can see the tones are different. The yellows are deeper in the Lavender, and the purple pops out a smidge more. 

And can I say, I keep spelling Lavender "Lavendar"? 

It's a failing of mine. I'm not sure why. 

Thank god for spell check. 

(If you look back, only the quoted word is spelled wrong... HAH!)

So why is this photo expose important?

Well, I know some people out there are not sold on the difference between the Albino and the Lav Albino. 

But as you can see, there are clear differences, and they do amazing and different things to other morphs. 

I can't wait to show you a Dreamsicle versus an Albino Pied. 

Give me like... 5 more years on that one, 'kay?

Hope this helps, and have a great weekend, my friends!

MWAHAHAHAHA (Pastel Pied)

So guess what? I actually took some photos, got an inspiration for blogging, and am pretty damned pleased with myself. 

I did not sit in front of the computer for several hours trying to figure out what to write about.

I decided to move some males around last night, and took out the Pastel Pied male that I produced last year. 

Here are a few shots of him over the years. 

The photo below is a picture of him from the collection page. He was around 8 months old?

The photo below this one is a photo of a Pastel Pied from this year.

As you can see, there is at least a years age difference between the two. The Male is much brighter, and the baby not so much. She should grow into her colors more as time goes on.

It is pretty damned hard to see the difference between a Pastel Pied and a regular pied just by photos. I plan to do something about that tomorrow maybe.

And there are plenty of Pieds out there that are very orange, but end up being brown as they age, versus a Pastel Pied, which will lighten up into yellows.

Here's to cool aging morphs that change as they grow.

MWAHAHAHAHAHAH!

Have a great day, my friends.

Writers Block

More often than not these days, I have been having writers block.

Mainly due to the fact that my life right now is a whirlwind, and that I have been going non-stop for a while...

What does this mean? It means that above and beyond snakes, I have my full time job, my classes, my wedding to prepare for, and various and sundry other little things in life that tend to take up my time.

There are days when I feel horrible for not getting back to an e-mail within 12 hours, but when I don't get home until after 14 hours... I kinda let it slide.

President's Day weekend was a nice one, a nice break from the constant run run run.

You wanna know what I did?

I slept.

I slept for more than 12 hours one day.

I felt like a complete slug when I got up, and of course didn't get to do half of the things I had planned for that day, but apparently that is what my body needed.

And now, back to the grind this week, I reflect on the things that I have not been doing as well as I would like on.

One thing being this blog.

I have been debating on whether or not to make it less frequent, change the tone, do something to make it more palatable for the reader, who I'm sure is not really that interested in my sleeping patterns over the last few days.

I've been slacking on breeding pictures like CRAZY this year.

Half the time I get home, and they have already unlocked, or are not doing anything interesting.

It's a shame, really. I know that is always a good thing to talk about, but right now, there is not much. Things are gearing up, Ovs are starting, and breeding is still going.

I feel the need to get in there and photograph, but half the time I do, there is nothing really worth it that I haven't already felt like I shared 193 times this month. Case in point, the Super Pastel Mojave above.

That is an awesome animal, but I'm pretty sure if we go back to the past month, there is at least one other blog with that same animal in a different pose.

A big deal? No, not really, but I like to spice things up.. I like to share new things, as bland can be boring.

It has also been interesting to see on the inter-webs how many new breeders there are out there, with all the excitement and willingness to share everything and all of their knowledge. Who am I to stifle that?

I have actually taken a backseat to a lot of the forums recently, partially due to time, and the other half being that there are a ton of people out there answering the same question. Does my addition need to be there?

It's a hard pill to swallow sometimes when your advice isn't taken over someone else.

Pride? Sure!

I admit to being proud. I admit to being human and making mistakes too.

We all do it, and in a time and place where we are inundated with information and images and new things, it's hard to separate the bad apples from the good eggs. (Yes, weird garbled food saying, I know).

So what does this all mean?

Well, I'm not quite sure.

I know I'm going to continue to do what I'm doing, I'm going to get up off my ass and get some photos done, I'm going to get more done and more rest as well.

Impossible?

Nah.

Some people out there gave me the nickname "Wonder Woman".

Can I live up to it?

I damned sure hope so.


Have a great day, my friends.

Plans... Oh, how they change

So having a bit of time to peruse the collection, I stopped to look at things and how they are progressing.

Some animals are not eating as well as I would like.

Some 2011s are already overtaking some of the 2010s.

And with that, the heart sinks and the plans change.

It's kind of a mixed blessing, I suppose.

Some plans for some animals are no longer on cue, which gives other smaller animals who may do better things in the future more time to catch up.

Case in point: I have a Super Pastel het Hypo female that is from 2010 not even breaking 500 grams. Why, do you ask? Well, for the longest time, she would not eat for me. She was a mouser, and she and I were in a battle of wills to get one another to acquiesce. I would not back down, and neither would she for the longest time. But she finally did, and is now chowing down happily on rats.

The problem with this scenario?

I lost several months of good growth with her if I had just given in.

Should I have?

I could have... I just don't like feeding mice unless I absolutely have to.


Is it a personality glitch that I need to have everything my way?

Nah, I don't think so. I just need things to be easier in the long run, and I am willing to wait a bit.

Sometimes though, I kick myself for fighting the good fight. Now I have to wait with these gals and pump them up more now than ever before to catch them up to a good weight for the next season. Or wait some more.

Either way, that is why Ball Pythons have the reputation they have. They can be tricky, they can be a pain, but in the end, they are totally worth it.

I just have to remind myself of that when I see tiny two year old critters in my rack.

...sigh...


Have a great day, my friends.