Just a Snake in the... Mud...?

I have often risked my own well being for the sake of a photo.  I have climbed up on places that were not only probably not safe, but certainly not allowed by the venue's rules.  I have gotten myself knee deep stuck in mud, water, or plants I'm allergic to.  I have almost fallen into lakes, oceans, fires, off ladders, buildings, out of trees... if I see a shot I want, I become pretty much fearless.

This shot was taken this past April on a walk with my husband on a friend's property down in Kentucky.  We had *just* finished a conversation in which I stated I really hoped we didn't come across any snakes on our walk because I was sure it would freak me out a bit (we had just been told a pretty graphic story about a turkey destroying a huge snake and I was all paranoid.  I'm not afraid of snakes, I just know that I would never be able to tell you if one I came across was poisonous or not, and that doesn't sit well with me.  Not 5 minutes after we stopped talking about snakes, I almost stepped on this one in the mud on our way back to the house.  Instead of freaking out, I leaned in closer to shoot as many frames as I could get before he skittered away.  This snake was more fearless than I was.  In fact, I have an incredible frame (that is unfortunately not in focus) of this guy lunging at my lens with his mouth wide open.  He was pretty sure he was gonna take me down.  I like this shot the best of the ones I got because of the shadow under him.  Adds drama, and I love me some dramatic shadows!

Babies R Us

I love kids.  I love babies.  I very much look forward to motherhood someday, but in the meantime I content myself with taking photos of other people's kids.  Recently I did a giveaway on my Shutterbug Facebook page for a couple of people to get free baby photos.  This was mostly to help me expand my portfolio in that particular genre, but I ended up having so much fun with it I may have to do a similar giveaway again in the future!  One of the winners was a girl I used to go to high school with.  She is now mother of two, and wanted to get some updated photos of her youngest (8 months).  This shot was one of my favourites of the day.  I had a lot of fun, but the shoot was also a challenge since the baby had recently learned to crawl and was far more interested in showing off how fast she could move out of the frame :o)  I learned a lot for future shoots, and enjoyed doing it.  This shot makes me smile though because it has got to be one of the most adorable facial expressions I've seen in a very long time.  I also really liked how the backdrop split really worked with the photo so I didn't have to re-edit the entire background like with some of the frames from the shoot (note to self, buy bigger backdrop to use when photographing small and mobile children! lol)

If you need baby or kid photos, send us a note to book a session (Rachel@ShutterbugDesign.com) or if you have a great baby or kid photo you'd like to share please send us a link!