Todays shoot was to continue with my Gastropod assignment and for this wanted to try something a little different to last time, by trying to photograph my subject matter in a completely different perspective. To do this I thought I would photograph the snails from underneath a plate of glass. Like the first shoot I was using a white backdrop and my lighting set up was the same (scroll down to past posts for more information). The reason for using white is to help you appreciate the detail of the creature, along with converting the image to black & white so there are no distractions from the colours. My intention was to focus on a series of lines that can be found underneath a snails body but as nature is so unpredictable, I ended up photographing the snail opening its mouth and closing as this is something that I have never seen before and I'm sure many others haven't. I just simply couldn't believe how alien it seemed to look through the glass. I have spent a lot of time photographing and watching these snails, So I thought I believed that I had seen everything and it wasn't the first time I had seen the lips showing as I have photographed them eating before but to see the mouth and tongue was a great surprise.
The reason for choosing the studio was to focus on the characteristics of the snails and to show they're interesting details. Such as the shell, eyes, lips, mouth and texture of the skin. I feel that I have achieved this today and will continue to photograph them in the studio environment to see if I can capture anymore surprises like today, along with looking at different perspectives in which to bring creatures that are often looked upon as dull into the spot light. Work will be added at the end of the assignment in the Marco/microscopy section.