The World of the Green Vine Snake

[Bibhav Behera]

I shot this image in Agumbe. We spotted this Green Vine Snake in the shrubs near the camp and after clicking macros of this really compliant subject to our heart's content, I decided to take a few images of it portraying its habitat. I pulled out my 7D which had the fisheye attached to it, put it on MF (The Tokina 10-17 AF is extremely slow) and slowly inched closer keeping an eye on the snake's behaviour to avoid breaching its comfort zone. I could move in to around 4 cm away from it and was happy with the frame with its head just popping out of the shadows. I focussed, fired away a few frames and backed off.

PS: This was one of my favourite images from the trip.

Canon EOS 7D, Tokina 10-17mm Fisheye @ 10mm
SS 1/200
f/3.5
ISO 800

Full Frame image. Comments and Critiques welcome.

[Mrudul Godbole]

Nice. So well camouflaged with the habitat. Good details. Thanks for sharing.

[Abhishek Jamalabad]

A very nice depiction of how well this snake blends in with its habitat. Nicely composed with the snake 'coming in' towards the centre.

TFS

[Sabyasachi Patra]

Nice image. Did you darken the rest of the image? I don't have more experiences of moving close to pythons and can vouch that some have more tolerance than others. And the ones having more tolerance for you to move closer can also give you a nasty kiss. I hope others don't try to emulate you.
Cheers,
Sabyasachi

[Bibhav Behera]

Hi Sabyasachi,
The rest of the image is not darkened. I pulled up the shadows at the bottom and the highlights down from the top. Increased a bit of contrast near the snake head for it to pop. Exposure near the head is unaltered.

I agree that one should not move close to snakes without supervision.

[Roopak Gangadharan]

Nice one. Agree with abhishek ...the image depicts it world well, this is how one is likely to see it more often than not.
TFS
Roopak