The Unusual Suspects
There's an old saying "Never work with children or animals" - especially when the animals concerned are snails. My dubious skills as a Snail Whisperer were put to the test when I came up with this idea (see first comment box). It can be a challenge to photograph even one snail with good focus, but five? - I must have been mad...
For Macro Mondays theme 'Misfit'.
Among my resident Garden snails of the species Cornu aspersum, I have one individual of a different species, a White-lipped snail, Cepaea hortensis, that would act as the 'misfit'.
I planned the shot to give me a fighting chance of getting at least a reasonable focus on all five snails. I started by placing two small pieces of Blu Tack 7.6 cm apart on the black Perspex to act as the boundary for the maximum size of the shot and provide a 'reference line' for placing the snails. Ideally, I wanted all five snails lined up and waving their eye stalks at the camera, but it didn't take very long to realise this wasn't going to happen. Two of my subjects weren't very active, which actually was helpful because I could get them in focus, and then let the other three crawl into the shot. A number of attempts at positioning and repositioning the snails were required. Getting all five in a row was a squeeze within the boundaries, so when one snail crawled up onto the 'misfit', I let it happen. So I only got two snails to cooperate as I would have liked. But I won't be sad, 'cause two out of five ain't bad...
The Unusual Suspects
There's an old saying "Never work with children or animals" - especially when the animals concerned are snails. My dubious skills as a Snail Whisperer were put to the test when I came up with this idea (see first comment box). It can be a challenge to photograph even one snail with good focus, but five? - I must have been mad...
For Macro Mondays theme 'Misfit'.
Among my resident Garden snails of the species Cornu aspersum, I have one individual of a different species, a White-lipped snail, Cepaea hortensis, that would act as the 'misfit'.
I planned the shot to give me a fighting chance of getting at least a reasonable focus on all five snails. I started by placing two small pieces of Blu Tack 7.6 cm apart on the black Perspex to act as the boundary for the maximum size of the shot and provide a 'reference line' for placing the snails. Ideally, I wanted all five snails lined up and waving their eye stalks at the camera, but it didn't take very long to realise this wasn't going to happen. Two of my subjects weren't very active, which actually was helpful because I could get them in focus, and then let the other three crawl into the shot. A number of attempts at positioning and repositioning the snails were required. Getting all five in a row was a squeeze within the boundaries, so when one snail crawled up onto the 'misfit', I let it happen. So I only got two snails to cooperate as I would have liked. But I won't be sad, 'cause two out of five ain't bad...