Saturday, July 4, 2009

Stony Brook - Gigantic Snapping Turtle

The family took a trip to nearby Stony Brook Wildlife Sanctuary to have a little holiday outing this afternoon. We took the camera along and one of the sights we saw was a gigantic snapping turtle. His shell really just looked like a regular old pond rock and we didn't notice him at first. I was taking pictures of some dodder nearby when he raised his head and exhaled. This alerted Michelle who alerted me to his presence. I laid down on the boardwalk on my belly and shot these with the macro lens without the tripod.

For this shot I was stretched out over the water with my hips on the edge of the board walk and my arms outstretched fully. I was using auto-focus and as the image preview came up after each shot I quickly adjusted the angle of the camera to try and get his head framed before my core muscles gave out. I really like all the vegetation on him and the illusion that he's grinning. This is definitely an image worth clicking on to see the big version. It is my new desktop at home.

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