Reptile & Amphibian Forums

When I caught this snake in June of 1995, I was impressed with the intensity of its orange (Damon apparently wasn't LOL). I shot these photos of it early the next morning in the Stillwell's parking lot on a rock I drug down from Stillwells hill. I did use a flash (I always use a flash) and Kodachrome 64 slide film. When I got the slides back, I was disappointed with how washed out the orange appeared . . .

Damon shot this photo of the snake either later that day or the next day in the hotel room at Sanderson (on the same rock from Stillwell's hill). Yesterday was the first I saw the photo, and I was amazed that it was even drabber-looking than my first shots of the snake that I was so dissappointed with 10 years ago.

After I got home and got the photos back, I shot up another roll of Kodachrome 64 on the snake. I decided that the problem with the first set of shots was that the light background washed out the snake's color. So I shot it on my front porch on a gray limestone rock from either Sanderson or Lancaster hill. I was rather pleased with these photos.

In December of '95, Doug Wuerch came by to visit and photo my snakes. This was one of the shots he took of the Stillwell's snake, also on a the same gray limestone rock as above. The photo was shot using natural light with a reflector on an overcast day in my front yard. I don't know what kind of film.

Finally, I shot a roll of Fuji Velvia 50 in 1996 (after I switched to that film). This was shot (IIRC) in my snake room under incandescent lights and with a flash. The orange in this shot was a bit "off" (too yellow), and the snake had aged a bit and a little more black had crept into the bands as it matured.

The point? (Aside from that Damon's photo is too dull LOL) is that different shots and different lighting and different film has a lot to do with how a photo looks . . . and our photos go a long way to coloring our impressions and recollections of how a particular snake looked.

Troy

I think that snake got better looking as it got older despite the webbing. more contrast, better looking snake!

Forky

i agree w/ Forky, he does look better, but as you point out, alot od that might just be the presentation. great series with info on the differences in presentation.

Scott

Troy,

I agree there is nothing more misleading than photos of snakes with red on them. And digital photography makes the situation worse. Many digital cameras tend to oversaturate red, in my experience. I have an older Olympus C-700 that makes any alterna into a screamer!

BTW - How do you judge "snake quality"? I thought beauty was in the eye of the beholder. Nowhere is that more true than in alterna, IMHO.

Chris
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Chris Harrison
Central Texas

Ah, someone who seems to get my point regarding the photos . . .

Snake quality is certainly a personal yardstick . . . much of the argument below (at least on my part) has nothing to do with a disagreement over individual's subjective judgement over a snake's "quality" but rather whether or not one or another photo was a more accurate representation of the animal, especially given that one individual (that saw the snake for less than an hour over 2 days) thinks he's in a better position to judge (based on his "memory" what the animal looked like rather than my wife & I who had the animal for 10 years, and worked hard to get an accurate photo. I think the above series shows that one photo is WAY off in terms of color when compared to all the others (3 show it reddish orange, one bright orange, but I explained why, and 1 shows it dull orange - which it never was).

Troy

Let's say that all the bad photos have color that's WAY off.

Even in the worst light, the hottest flash, the most poorly exposed shot, it's impossible to make mid-scale fade-outs and black appear in fantastic orange.

I remember the light-centered scales and the black. He does look like he got better as he got older (despite the webbing as Joe put it). Good dark phase always seem to get better when there's more of a contrast between the orange and the dark gray/black. My second 9-miler was/is that way... neat as a youngster, much better as an adult. That Gap snake was a great snake... but not a "10" for me. You have a different opinion. That's OK.

are 3 and 4

I don't care what you "remember"

Troy

I don't have to remember... you took photos. LOL

You guys have repeatedly gone back and forth to demonstrate what? Who has better visual perception? Who has better film or digital technology and processing? Who has a better memory? Quien es mas macho?

A snake, like any successful organism, is what it is because of natural selection and adaptation as nature shapes those forces influencing its survival...and when you encounter it, that individual is special because it has met those challenges and can make a living and reproduce within its environment, no matter what its appearance to a human is like.

This numeric rating system you both use is the most absurd thing I've ever seen. Numbers??? Explain what the hell are they related to? That system is entirely subjective and without any scale, unless there is some consensus among the "visual community" as to what they actually mean...not to mention the variation in visual percerption related to an individual person's optic anatomy and image processing within the brain. To my knowledge no such numeric rating scale has ever been qauntified, qaulified, nor published, even in junk publications like Reptiles Magazine. Brown is brown and orange is orange, we'll all agree with that.

...And limestone still rocks and rhyolite sucks, despite any bonus points assigned for subjective selected factors. 10, 5, -3, whatever, is absolutely meaningless. If you want to use this type of rating scale, at least define the criteria and put some science into it first, so that we can all be on the same page. Crikey.

That's my 2 cents worth.

If you have any comments, bring 'em on.

...that's supposed to be qualified and quantified. Now who's the idiot? Ha!

My entire underlying point behind the latter part of this discussion regards the absurdity of assigning ratings to a species that's so undeniably variable that any perception HAS to be subjective.

Here's an excerpt from the post where I tried to bow out:
"The easiest thing to love about Gray-Banded Kingsnakes is the phenotypic variability. I'm sure that's why nearly everyone who takes the time falls in love with them. From Val Verde down through Brewster and up to Hudspeth, each area is unique with its own suite of identifying characters. Each area has its own mystique and it's fun to hunt all of them. It's human nature to categorize and classify. Truth be told I have no real preference of one locality over another. Certain animals do tend to be more appealing, usually due to the perceived novelty or rarity of the phenotype. An exceptional specimen from any locality is nearly impossible to resist. From a perspective from profundity, the greatness of a specimen from any given locality is tied (to a lesser extent) to the knowledge that it differs so markedly from the other specimens likely to be encountered locally and (to a greater extent) to the specimens likely to be encountered a county away. A great light blairs wouldn't have the breathtaking power it does were it not so comparatively different from a Davis, a River or an Alpine. By the same token, a great Davis would suffer the same fall into a realm of the mundane were it not for the other phenotypes with which it shares so little in common. Simply stated, I think all alterna are great by comparison. The fact that the variation in alterna is almost incomprehensibly broad makes any specimen a treasure. We'll all continue to have our favorites and I'm sure those favorites will change over time... especially as new populations are discovered and known populations produce more for us to see."

I mostly just like chasing Troy's Clay Henry around the stock yard. LOL. It's all in fun.

I don't care on whit if Damon doesn't think my snake was "10" or whatever . . . the bone of contention between him and me of late has been that he seems to think that his photo is more representative of the snake than mine, and that his viewings of the snake over a two day period give him a better insight into what the snake looked like than my viewings of the same snake over a 5 year period. Which is patently absurd. I owned the snake, worked hard to get a representative photo, and Damon's photo turned "tomato orange" into dull brown-orange. Yet his "memory" of the snake is better than mine? Who's he trying to kid?

As for "ratings", sure they are subjective . . . but they do show one person's subjective judgement of how nice a particular animal is relative to other snakes. You may not agree with ratings, but I think anyone will agree that Catherine Zeta-Jones is more attractive (by almost everyone's yardstick) than Roseanne Barr. Whether or not you arbitrarily call CZJ a "10" or an "8" and Roseanne a "4" or a "3" or a "2" is immaterial . .. the numbers provide a way for someone who has never seen either to quickly describe the two without having to use long sentences.

Troy

A few questions...do you have to look at Catherine Zeta Jones for 5 years to see that she's beautiful?... or take pictures of her for five years to get a "representative" shot? What happens if you see her for 5 minutes just one time... do you remember her beauty years later?

I'm JUST KIDDING Troy.

Let's try to think up something else to talk about. I like the repartee but the dead horse is ready to be put into the "Mighty Dog" cans LOL.

Do you have photos of your Davis and Alpine critters from the last trip? I'd honestly like to see them. Despite my ribbing you, I do like snakes from there.

Of course, if you saw CZJ on a "bad hair day", took a crappy photo (as are sometimes seen in the tabloids), and based your "memory" off of that crappy photo, then you might wonder why someone else thought she was a "10" LOL

I have slides of the July/early Aug Davis/Alpine/Xmas snakes on hand, but the late Aug Davis/Alpines I haven't even sent off yet. The digital pix my Dad took I don't like much . . .

Troy

So I took crappy photos while the snake was having... a... bad... hair............*sigh*

Nevermind.

(Sorry, I couldn't help myself) LOL

well, considering that your photos are the only ones that show the tomato-red bands that the animal really had as being dull brownish orange, its pretty clear that your photos are lacking, not the snake.

Troy

Human memory is notoriously short term when it comes to color... even for someone who's just recently seen the color they've been asked to recall. Regardless of the color depicted in any of the photos, there are still scale-center fade-outs and black present. I remember that to be sure (and coincidentally it's depicted in your photos too). Coupling that with a blairi pattern that could have come from somewhere other than the Gap, I still say that snake was not as impressive as it's touted to be. It was very nice, but if someone calls something a "10", I conjure images of a show-stopper.

I guess that's as close as you're going to come to admitting that my photos of the snake are more accurate than yours I'll take it!

There were definitely black flecks in the bands, particularly towards the back of the body, a trait that increased a bit with age. The so-called "fade outs" were never very evident - what you are pointing out as a "fade out" in my first (poor) photo was more of an artifact that an scale characteristic - I do know that they were not evident even a couple of weeks later when I shot my better pictures or in Dec of 95 when Doug came by and shot his. If you don't want to call it a "10", then that's fine by me. As for your contention that it could have come from elsewhere in the range (besides the Gap, I mean) - I haven't seen a snake with quite the fine details present (e.g. intricate head pattern) on this snake anywhere else, save perhaps a couple of 9 mile/16 mile Sandersons - certainly not East of Sandersons which typically look a lot more like Langtrys (however nice or ugly).

Troy

My sentiments exactly! Which is why each and every wc alterna in Damon's tub of alterna photo "rates" a 10 Damon, please make a poster of that photo commercially available. I would love to wake up to it every morning instead of my Mother-in-law's portrait of Havasupai Falls. Oops, I think I may have just stepped in it...RP