Photograph British snakes in Purbeck, dorset - new workshop

Today we will photograph British Snakes in natural surroundings in the picturesque area of Purbeck in Dorset. We will spend our day on the moors a couple of miles or so outside of Wareham. We are extremely fortunate to have Dr. Tony Phelps and his assistant with us on this workshop. Tony is on a short visit to the UK and Photographers on Safari are delighted to have teamed up with him for these workshops. Tony is an expert on snake photography, and he will handle the snakes and offer a privileged insight into their secretive world.

World Renowned Snake Expert

A squamate (snake & lizard) ecologist, Dr Tony Phelps is renowned for his long-term studies of vipers in Europe and in Africa. He has published extensively on the subject.
He set up the Reptile Institute UK in the 1970s and later designed and ran the Poole Serpentarium as Curator. He was also the Curator of Fitzsimons Snake Park in Durban. He worked as a specialist cameraman on Mark O’Shea’s Discovery Channel film Black Mamba and has also worked for television production companies and produced some excellent footage of reptiles in the wild. He is an acclaimed stills photographer & runs courses and conducts fieldwork in South Africa.

Grass Snake

Grass snakes favour damp areas with long grass. They feed predominantly on frogs and tadpoles. They are not poisonous, and do not constrict their prey. They swallow their prey whole. An adult grass snake can survive a whole year on just six or seven frogs. Grass snakes are very wary and often overlooked.

Adder

The adder is the only poisonous snake native to Britain. They are not aggressive and will only use their poison as a last means of defence. Nobody has died from an adder bite in the last twenty years in Britain. They are relatively common in rough open countryside. They eat small rodents, lizards, frogs and newts, killing them by injecting a lethal dose of poison.

Smooth Snake

Smooth snakes are constrictors. They wrap their coils tightly around their prey before swallowing them live and whole. They are non venomous and harmless to humans. They live in dry sunny areas, heath-land and woodland in the south of England. They feed on lizards, snakes, rodents, spiders, insects and earthworms. These snakes are now very rare and are protected under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981.

Slow Worm

Slow worms look superficially like snakes. They are, however, actually legless lizards. They have eyelids, which snakes do not possess. They have smooth snake-like bodies, and adults often have blue spots on their body. They live in grassy meadows and woodland margins. They eat slugs, snails, spiders, insects and earthworms.

Sand Lizards

We will hopefully also find some Sand Lizards. These are rare in Britain. They are stocky, short legged, have short heads, blunt snouts and short tails. They frequent heath-land and sand dunes. They live on slugs, spiders and insects, but will also feed on flower heads and fruit.

Natural Settings

Tony will use all his knowledge and skills to find these subjects for us. We will hopefully be able to photograph each of these species in natural settings (and set-ups) on the nearby common. Participants will have to take turns to photograph each subject as space around our subjects may be limited. That said, everybody will have plenty of time to get the photographs they desire. April is the optimum time to photograph these reptiles as they have just emerged from hibernation and they are at their most active.

Advice, Tips & Tuition

As with all of our workshops. group tuition followed by ongoing one to one photographic advice is available to everybody. We not only provide you with great opportunities to take photographs, we also assist you how best to use the correct techniques. Our aim is that you leave our workshop today with some really different and stunning images. Take this opportunity to impress your friends with some stunning shots of "really hard to get" subjects.

Close up shots

You will have the opportunity to get really close to your subjects. How close, or how far away, you want to be is up to you. Macro lenses are welcome (but certainly not a necessity) for most situations we will be presented with today. Some people may prefer a longer lens and to keep that bit further away. The choice is yours.

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