jeetsukumaran
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 p.3 #10 · Snakes & landscape shooting in TX | |
I've spent a large portion of my life working in rainforests, actually going out a looking for snakes, frogs, and lizards, with photography being secondary to the main work of herpetological research. My experience in arid environments is much less, limited to visits with friends/colleagues working in that habitat.
My advice:
(1) don't sweat it[*1]
(2) don't sweat it[*1]
(3) don't sweat it[*1]
[*1] As long as you do not try to handle, pick-up, kill, etc. the snake(s)
In Southeast Asian rainforests, at least, you should be much more concerned about tree branches falling on your head during or following a rain storm than anything else. Followed by the little guys -- parasites, mosquite-borne diseases, etc. Actual danger from other sources (snakes, tigers) is, statistically-speaking, a fantasy.
Snake contact/observation frequency can be an order of magnitude higher in arid environments for some reason (I suspect observation artifact rather than density). But the danger is only marginally more. Do not forget that venom is metabolically very expensive, so even if you do accidentally provoke a defensive bite, it is most likely going to a dry bite (as there is no food pay-off: you in no way are going to be mistaken for prey for any venomous snakes[*2]) unless the snake is really antagonized.
[*2] the big constrictors, such as the Reticulated Python do see us as prey ... and routinely, though not frequently, take and eat humans.
There are a few species that you might want to be concerned about. For e.g., in the northern Malay Peninsula, the ground-dwelling Malayan Pit-viper is generally quite sluggish during the day. This, combined with their cryptic coloration, is a dangerous combination: it lies on trails, it is difficult to see, it does not move out of the way of oncoming traffic, resulting in a relatively probability of it being stepped on, resulting in not only a high frequency of defensive bites, but a high frequency of it being scared/angry when doing the defensive bite, which means a high probability of a "wet" defensive bite. In the US, you are lucky to have most of the venomous snakes have some really prominent alarm signals (rattles), and they definitely use them to warn you (as long as their energy levels are sufficient). This greatly decreases the probability of a "mis-bite".
Instead of worrying about snakes, I think you should look forward to maybe/hopefully encountering them if you are lucky enough  ! They are beautiful creatures and, especially the pit-vipers that coil up, make for great subjects. The rat snakes and other fast-movers are not so great for photography: when active they move too fast, and even moving slower they rarely have their bodies coiled so that with the full-body shots you end up with a long thin snake with lots of empty frame. Stick to close-ups of heads for that.
Even if you do not find the idea of a snake encounter appealing, I think the best thing you can do to help yourself is to look up the snake species in your area and try and identify them down at least to genus level by sight. Most field guides will have at least sufficient basic information for you understand their behavior with respect to humans (aggressive? not aggressive?), and so let you know where you stand. On the exceedingly rare chance that you do get bitten, understanding roughly what species did bite you will give you so much information as to: what danger are you really in? what the symptoms of envenomation of this species are (pain? no pain? swelling?)? what sort of antivenom might need to be administered? etc. etc. But I think it would be good to understand the snakes of your area for their own sake, and not due to fear.
And finally, here are some snake photographs:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/jeetsukumaran/sets/72157638340830096
This is a Red-headed Krait (Bungarus flaviceps). A beautiful, beautiful snake! An elapid, so pretty venomous, but not at all aggressive. Even as the group I was with was collecting it (for research), while it started lashing out and striking when it got alarmed, I never saw it actually try to bite: it just made lots of threatening strikes and "knocks" with its head. Of course, kraits are responsible for many deaths in Asia, so I am not saying that these guys are not dangerous. Just not aggressive (most of the deaths occur in rural areas when kraits move into the homes of people at night for warmth and dryness during the rainy season, and creep into bed with them because that's where it is really warm; people roll over in their sleep and get bitten; most of the time they do not even realize it because the bites are relatively painless and venom is neurotoxic instead of haemo- or myco-toxic; they just wake up with difficulty breathing as their systems start shutting down).
 JS-20050709-123711
This is a Malayan Coral Snake (Calliophis bivirgatus). Even more beautiful! Isn't it exquisite? It has venom glands running a full 2.3 its body length, and is usually considered very dangerous for this. But its delivery system sucks when it comes to humans: it really has a relatively tiny mouth and there are not many places on our body that it can effectively envenomate us: maybe, e.g., the webbing between our thumb and fingers, for example.
 JS-20050630-181017
This is Pope's Pit Viper (Trimeresurus popeorum). Always can count on this one for a photogenic pose!
 JS-20100603-075932
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