Most Unexpected

Why won't my snake eat???
She's been extremely active lately, as in climbing and cruising all around her tank 24-7 for weeks. You would think all that exercise burns enough calories to make a snake powerful hungry, but there are two mice living in our garage that prove otherwise.

When the timer tripped and lit up her tank the other day, I looked over my shoulder and it took me quite awhile to process what I was seeing:
Snake eggs!
And smaller orange not snake eggs...



Poor girl was exhausted from pushing them out and didn't move a muscle for over 24 hours. Yesterday I was able to harvest them, and clean 'em up for a portrait:


After Googling for a few minutes I found out that it's normal for a captive female corn snake (and other species) to lay eggs and "slugs" without ever coming into contact with a suitable male during breeding season.
Last year at this time Candy was just as active and uninterested in food but didn't push out any weird stuff, although I suspected that her behavior was mating related. She was already an adult when I found her 5 years ago so it's odd that all of a sudden this stuff happens.



Over the next year I might try to find someone local with a suitable male who's interested in breeding. Hopefully I can find a male with normal corn snake colors, since the plethora of selective-bred fancy colors don't interest me as much--Candy being the exception because she's mine and oh so sweet.
I once built an incubator on the fly with stuff laying around the house when a lizard someone gave me dumped a clutch of eggs, and successfully hatched a half dozen babies 2 months later. No reason I couldn't do it again but much better with minimal investment.


When I get the time for dissection, we'll see if there's anything inside these eggs and slugs worth seeing.

Flash Modifiers

This is what I've been doing lately, besides yardwork

Last week I built a new grid for my main flash.
My last one was a great first attempt, but over time I found that the straws I had used to focus the flash into a smaller circle (instead of blasting the whole room) were too long, resulting in too much of a good thing by far. Full-choked light wasn't as useful sometimes, so I wanted a wider pattern.
I had my brother run it through his bandsaw to shorten the whole thing, and it pretty much exploded into tiny pieces all over the driveway. This was a surprise, since the same modification had worked fairly well on a grid for my smaller accent flashes.
I made a new one with 1/2" straws (vs 1") and it works much better for me. Also used balsa wood instead of frame mat-board since it's much easier to cut and sand, saving mucho time in construction. Balsa is fragile, but in this box form with all the straws filling space (and glued together) it's very strong, yet light.


I used the grid to light the main petunia and a minimum of surrounding foliage:
I like it when the light starts to dim just outside of the main subject, so surrounding items don't compete for attention. Grids are great for that.
In this case, after a few exposures I added my other two accent flashes to the foliage and white blooms to add some spice.



After that project got me back where I was before, I jumped right into the next one.

A softbox is a light modifier that, much like using a white umbrella with your flash, spreads the light out and therefore softens it. Shadows have less of a hard edge to them. Like the difference between direct sunlight and overcast.
Unlike umbrellas, there isn't any stray light spilling into the rest of your "studio", and they are also easier to get into difficult angles like straight up or down.
I started by going through my stockpile of old microphone stands and booms and came up with the perfect setup.
Then I found a sheet of new black foamcore for a dollar.
Cutcutcut, glueglueglue.
(Using a self-healing cutting mat really helps--Thanks Lisa!)

The inside walls are reflective (using foil) and for now I have some material from a white linen napkin to spread the light:
As with all of my DIY light modifiers, this has a good friction-fit when mounted to the flash.
No velcro or rubber bands for me, if I can help it.


Finally found some feeder mice locally today, so Candy got to come out of her habitat and socialize before dinner:
The softbox was around 15" away, and you can hopefully see how all of the "specular highlights" ( = relections of the light source) are long and smooth instead of being pinpoints of over-bright ugliness like you can get with bare naked flash.

I used a 2nd flash unit behind a blue gel to hit the wall behind this scene, and appreciated the quick artistic freedom that small flashes can furnish when I decided to make the right side fade a bit darker.


Candy was her usual twisty/grabby/snakey self, so I ended up having to partially disassemble the 8-string bass's stand to pry her loose.
I should have been ready for this, since right before her last feeding she somehow managed to get Sylvia's car keys stuck on her tail.

Candy Is Dandy

Snakes won't eat when their skin is too tight, so after shedding last week I knew Candy would be hungry.
First, she has to earn her meal by posing for the "Chair Project".


This is (was) the 2nd mouse:



Sylvia latest medal, from today's Rock & Roll Marathon:
I would have gone, but didn't wake up until 1:23pm. Oops.
(I haven't slept well all week)
I'm very proud of her--she came home to a bouquet of flowers sold to me by a couple of surly emo "girls" who'll never get another dime from me.
Hey, try not to let your hatred of men interfere with commerce?

View's "Week In Review"

Lots of stuff going on but no time or ability to pursue my "art", such as it is.

Here are some snapshots of my busy life:
Got to play bass for half of a song with The Quickies on Saturday--Rikk is laughing because I'm cramming-in as many notes as possible in my allotted time, and some of them are pretty funny.
(One of SylCan2's best photos ever, to me).

The Sylvester Strange Experience played at VFW Post #76 on Sunday, and I took the opportunity to explore using high iso (1600) with my new fast prime lens and in-body stabilisation in order to impress Matthew.
As Sylvia said: "Would have been great without the gutter pipe".
But there were lessons learned for the future.

Tonight I started out just trying to get a mouse for my snake to eat. (And some shoes...)
Then I thought that it was about time to replace her shredded aspen bedding after cleaning up the poops.
And if I'm going to do all that, I might as well scrub the tank with diluted bleach, then run the hose on it.

Long story short, it's about damn time I got a nice commercial background product so my snake's tank isn't throwing light in all directions, looking all white-painted-walls-bland.
Atmosphere rocks.