Smooth Scales Snakes

[cristacake]

Great pictures! I love the rat one, and Smiley stretching towards the camera.

I know nothing about photography since I only have my phone's camera, but it looks like that one picture was overexposed from the shutter being open for long enough that it let a lot of white light in. Pics can also get overexposed if the focus is on the brightest part of the picture, but I don't know anything about a camera that isn't 'tap to focus' like a phone camera.

[Prognathodon]

Yep, the last picture of Smiley is over-exposed. You can get the effect from a long exposure time for your aperture, or where you focus. Cristacake was close, but backwards - you need to focus on a dark area, so the camera forces a longer exposure time and/or larger aperture, letting in more light.You can also get the effect with post-processing. (Married to a photo geek)


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[tembii]

I love all your descriptions of your snakes!! They're all so precious, they have such great and different personalities and characteristics!! Your passion for snakes clearly shows through!!

[Hannahshissyfix]

Nice collection there! Does your super lesser have a smaller eye?

[SmoothScales]

Nice collection there! Does your super lesser have a smaller eye?

She does! It's actually a rather well known defect of the Super Lesser combination, much like duck billing or kinking for Super Black Pastels. This doesn't mean it will always happen, but it is very common. Other than being two different sizes, it doesn't appear to affect vision or bother her.

[DellaF]

Great collection! I really enjoyed your photos and descriptions of your snakes. Thanks for sharing.

[SmoothScales]

We've got some new additions, and updated pics! It's a little late for Easter, but some of the photos are Easter themed. I hope you enjoy!


Mr. Bubbles
Deep Blue

Blackout
Even Deeper Blue

Frank the Tank
Deeper Than The Deep Blue Sea


Those three looked so uncomfortable with their shed that I just didn't have the heart to make them sit for pictures, so they got a pass this time around! And wouldn't you know it, I looked in on Mr. Bubbles right before starting to type this out and he's currently in the act of wiggling out of his old skin. What a brat.

Fred the Magnifithent
Our Spinner Blast boy showed off his colors nicely against the dark background we chose for the photos. To bad sitting still wasn't something he wanted to do.




And one little head shot with a bit of tongue.




Smiley
Just look at that cute little face! Hard to believe that's the same snake that was 'playing tag' with me when he first arrived.







Terrestria
This little girl was in no mood for sitting still, but we did manage to get one photo of her that was in focus.





Sharona
I'm really not sure what happened to this picture, but most of the ones of Sharona have this weird bluish tint going on. I suspect she's getting ready to shed and the camera was picking up on the sheen of her scales.





Maxine
She was holding onto that Easter bowl pretty tightly with her tail. And true to form, managed to not be completely in focus once again.





Mon Cheri
Here are a couple of our Super Lesser. She has such a great temperament and is such a beautiful snake.




Look into her eye!





And an Easter themed one.





Aaaand one more just for Ax. :3





Now, onto some new arrivals!

Buggsie
While not a new arrival, this is the first time Buggsie will be posted outside of her rescue thread. (Didn't I say I had held back some photos of her?)




She looks so much better! I'm so proud of her.
And here's the little cutie being her own hat.





Next, I'll cover the three girls we picked up from Dean Holm of Deans Reptiles. They are all three Pastel het Orange Ghost and of course they all went into shed the day before pictures so they look a little blue in the photos.

Dorothy
First of the trio.




Glinda
Second of the trio, and a little bigger than Dorothy.







Jaws
The third of the trio, Jaws has a little bit of shark mouth going on and is the smallest of the girls. We might not have picked her as a solo purchase, but the three came as a package deal and she's got spunk. She's already eaten for us, and the shortened lower jaw didn't seem to slow her down much. Either way, we'll keep an eye on her and make sure she's getting what she needs.




Opera
Here's a little Phantom girl we picked up from Mike Porter of Porter's Pythons (aka BigFish1975). We've named her Opera...because I like to think I'm funny. She's got some really deep blacks that the camera just doesn't pick up that well. She's still a little shy, but eating fine. Likely still trying to decide if we're going to eat her or not, but I'm sure she'll pick up on that soon enough. I have the fortune of living close enough to Mike to be able to make a day trip to his area, so was able to pick up Opera in person. It was really fun to check out Mike's snakes and see what projects he's working on for this season. Can't wait to do it again! (You can check out our visit here.)





'The' Shepard
Because I'm a huge nerd that spends way to much time playing video games, our first Specter had to be named after Commander Shepard of the Mass Effect series. She came to us from Tim Reynolds of TK Morphs.




Mr. Wizard
This boy has been a PITA to find. My s.o. asked me for one thing last year for Christmas - a Sugar. So I started looking...that was September. Christmas has come and gone and I have looked at hundreds if not thousands of pictures of Calicos and Sugars and talked to a number of breeders...none of them had any real 'Wow' factor. Until I reached out to Vin Russo of Cutting Edge Herps and asked him his thoughts on the gene. It so happened that he had one Sugar left from his hatching season and while I would've preferred a girl, this boy was just to special looking to pass up. For a single gene, he's got some ridiculously high colors going on. It brings to mind the saying - 'Quality in, quality out', and I gotta say this boy has got quality to spare. He blows every other 'Sugar' I've looked at for the past 6 months out of the water. So, this Christmas present was really late, but well worth it. (You can watch his unboxing here.)








Not Ball Python related - the Hognose have finally showed up! After three months of waiting, it finally got warm enough on both ends for them to safely ship. They both came from Luke Edwards of Reptile Nexus and despite their delay were in great health and feeling feisty. (You can watch their unboxing video here.)

Kermit
This little boy is a 'conda het albino and is already getting ready to shed. Seems like a lot of kids showed up and started shedding right away. Must be the weather here in Cali.












Miss Piggy
Can't have Kermit without Miss Piggy. (Really, Sesame Street, what were you thinking?) She's a normal girl that is het albino. Both are pretty feisty and really small. Obviously I find them interesting and hope to breed them in a few years when they're big enough (I made sure they were unrelated), but don't think that means I'm wavering even a tiny bit on breeding plans for the Ball Pythons. I have a list for BP that I've been sticking to as much as possible, and it still has 5 more for this year alone. The Hognose list is much shorter - it only has one more on it for this year, so you can see the difference there.

And I've wandered off topic! Quick! Distraction technique deploy!



So angry looking!




This concludes your update! Now back to your regularly scheduled program.

[Fraido]

Love the tongue photos and the Hoggies!

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[Ax01]

Aaaand one more just for Ax. :3

aawww thanks!

sweet pick-ups. Miss Piggy is sooo cute!

lol i was watching your visit to Mike's place when the vid cut out. Opera is beautiful and your BF is tall BTW. i have a Dorothy (who i got from Mike, she's one of Ducky's kids) and a Glinda too.

[Aercadia]

That BEL is a riot!! I love the pics, keep them coming!