HUGE photo shoot!

I finally found a rather nice way to photograph my animals indoors. Since the sun sets at like 4pm, and it's cold out, this is a necessity! I did this by filling a shallow tray with gray calcium sand, the neutral gray color is EXCELLENT for capturing all of a snake's color, just like slate. It took much playing around with different types of bulbs for correct lighting but a desert UV light and a full spectrum coil bulb did the trick. The result was that the only thing i had to do to these photos was crop them, and fix some minor contrast issues, but I did not have to fix the colors to get true-to-life coloration. I hate it when you get that weird tint in photos and you have to manually fix each photo so that it shows what the snake REALLY looks like.This time I was able to capture all of their beautiful colors without any real effort. Now, if I could only muster up the $$ to buy a close-up kit for this camera!

So here are a bunch of random thamnophis and a few natrix and nerodia mixed in.

the newer female California Red sided. thamnophis sirtalis infernalis. I now own 2.2 of these beauties!
http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l...arters/023.jpg

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l...ters/024-1.jpg

CB orange female flame eastern thamnophis sirtalis sirtalis
http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l...rs/5689034.jpg

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l...rs/5689028.jpg

WC Potter County flame eastern thamnophis sirtalis sirtalis- I found her as a baby last summer.

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l...rs/5689022.jpg

My super sexy high black female Oregon Red Spot, thamnophis sirtalis concinnus. Picky eater but worth the trouble!

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l...rs/5689042.jpg

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l...rs/5689044.jpg

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l...rs/5689046.jpg

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l...rs/5689047.jpg

One of the nicest gifts I have ever recieved, a male orange wandering,thamnophis elegans vagrans.

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l...rs/5689060.jpg

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l...rs/5689063.jpg

And this actually is one of his sons, who is FLAMING FREAKING YELLOW. He just GLOWS and it's crazy. Sibs are colorful too, but not like this one... Don Belnap owns the orange female that the above male sired. Since both parents are orange, I would imagine this yellow may turn orange as he gets older!

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l...rs/5689052.jpg

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l...rs/5689056.jpg

A red sided garter produced by Rhea, thamnophis sirtalis parietalis.

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l...rs/5689067.jpg

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l...rs/5689069.jpg

A baby male valley garter, thamnophis sirtalis fitchii.

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l...rs/5689070.jpg

A baby female, and my favorite of the bunch for her glowing contrast
http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l...rs/5689074.jpg

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l...rs/5689075.jpg

Young adult male Eastern Blacknecked garter, thamnophis cyrtopsis ocellatus. My 1.2 trio were all produced by Joanna Duby.

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l...rs/5689087.jpg

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l...rs/5689089.jpg

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l...rs/5689091.jpg

One of the newest of my bunch, I had recently adopted a rather large group of adult garters and two of them were female albino checkereds, thamnophis marcianus.

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l...rs/5689093.jpg

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l...rs/5689098.jpg

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l...rs/5689101.jpg

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l...rs/5689106.jpg

A really crappy photo of my normal female chicago garter, thamnophis sirtalis semifasciatus. She would not stop striking at me and chewing into my hand so I had to take a quick one!
http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l...rs/5689118.jpg

My female CB 09 Santa Cruz, thamnophis atratus atratus. she is a beautiful teal blue color.
http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l...rs/7546071.jpg

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l...rs/7546081.jpg

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l...rs/7546085.jpg

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l...rs/7546088.jpg

And here is my male, he is a lovely dark evergreen color with light green and yellow cheeks!

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l...rs/7546095.jpg

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l...rs/7546097.jpg

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l...rs/7546099.jpg

Male albino redsided, these are HOT STUFF. Thamnophis sirtalis parietalis.

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l...rs/7546121.jpg

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l...rs/7546124.jpg

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l...rs/7546127.jpg

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l...rs/7546132.jpg

And here is the female.

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l...rs/7546138.jpg

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l...rs/7546140.jpg

this is one of the most interesting snakes I own. It is a female Iowa albino axanthic plains garter, thamnophis radix. Axanthic plains are a rich sky blue and black. The thing about this snake that wows me is the fact that though it is albino, the blue still manages to make an appearance. I never would have though you could have BLUE on an albino snake. And Finally, I managed to truly capture it with a camera. My first attempt was not nearly as good. As she grows, the blue is standing out more and more. I hope it never goes away!

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l...rs/7546145.jpg

There it is!!! look at that!!!

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l...rs/7546144.jpg

My holdback male Redstriped Ribbon snake, thamnophis proximus rubrilineatus.. These are strikingly beautiful and each of my trio is different, sadly, the other two were in shed.

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l...rs/7546151.jpg

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l...rs/7546157.jpg

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l...rs/7546159.jpg

Baby Female bluestriped garter, thamnophis sirtalis similis.. This snake is packing a whole lot of blue for such a young specimen! Already nicer than my male. She is going to be a drop dead gorgeous knockout. She's also the first similis I have met that willingly eats off my tongs and does not freak out every time she sees me.

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l...rs/7546160.jpg

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l...rs/7546162.jpg

This is a female eastern gifted to me from Scott Felzer wih the rest of my 09 order. Love her, she's now developing orange on her cheeks.
http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l...rs/7546166.jpg

Possibly my most favorite snake ever. Cherry Hypo banded FL water snake, nerodia fasciata pictiventris.

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l...rs/5689137.jpg

One of her '09 sons, this male was held back for displaying characteristics of being a pale hypo and was the hypo with the least red out of 26 babies.

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l...rs/7546185.jpg

A european grass snake, natrix natrix. Full of guppies! The smallest one, a female, did not make it, but thankfully the other two, a male/female pair are doing wonderful and have already doubled their size. This is the male, and I love him because he is solid black. the female is light gray with a black stomach.

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l...rs/7546200.jpg

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l...rs/7546201.jpg

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l...rs/7546205.jpg

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l...rs/7546207.jpg

And finally, my male Egyptian grass snake, Natrix Tesselata. They are so weird looking, their eyes stick out and glow.

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l...rs/5689003.jpg

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l...rs/5689010.jpg

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l...rs/5689015.jpg

That's all for this shoot! Thanks for viewing!

Very nice. Thanks for posting the pics.

Wow. Those are certainly excellent! :gj:

wow, just so many awesome species and colors! loving the albino's and red sides. the egyptian grass snake is a first for me, interesting to say the least.

Very nice quality pics! Garters are some really cool looking snakes and you have a great collection.

Snow garter... WOW!

Thanks for showing off the great beauty of these species! I have GOT to get one of those california red-sideds sometime!

Beautifull snakes. Makes me want some garter snakes again.

i must say you have some nice snakes. im a ball python guy but some of them are hot. good luck with them maybe you can hook me up with a pair when you have some to offer.