Postcards from Real Life: Odd

Estimated reading time: 3 minutes

My odd little friend was doing its snail thing and had no time for me and my photographer shenanigans on a soggy morning in the Smokies.

Meet my odd little friend who I not-very-cleverly refer to as Speed Racer. I met it on a soggy morning in the Smokies going about its snail business in the pungent, decaying forest rubble on the side of a trail.

I have a penchant for getting on the ground to nerd out on all the little details there. I love the small worlds that are just as intricate as our “big” world.

That usually means pursuing cute little flowers or funky plants. But on this morning, Speed Racer caught my attention.

Wildlife photography often highlights mega-fauna in action—raptors diving, elk sparring, bears stalking salmon, etc. Capturing those kinds of images takes a lot of time, energy, knowledge, and patience. You might have noticed I’m not a wildlife photographer.

But Speed Racer was, well, my speed. And yes, it is wildlife. It may not be the marquis species you might put on an inspirational wall poster, but it is wildlife.

And I thought it was cool as shit. I mean look at this odd little creature. It’s so bizarre and utterly fascinating.

It also delivered a stark reminder. I approached it as an “easy” photographic target. Ha! It was doing its snail thing and had no time for me and my photographer shenanigans.

Hot Pursuit

I spent a long time with Speed Racer. Moving around for a good angle. Waiting for it to give me an awesome snail pose.

When you’re working in tight quarters like this, it doesn’t take much movement for your composition to go to shit or the critter to move out of the frame. My otherwise slow-moving friend might as well have been a Formula One racer. Hence the name.

In the low light of the canopy towering overhead, I was using a tripod. Handheld wasn’t going to cut it in this scenario. Speed Racer continually zipped out of the frame so I had a lot of tosser images from this session with my uncooperative little model.

There were several times I almost moved on. But the tenacious part of me kept kicking in. So I stuck with it until I finally got this shot of Speed Racer uncurling and not quite completely open that satisfied my photographer spirit.

Cheers, friends! Here’s to the wonderfully odd details of our fabulous world.

Bluesky Art Show

This post is inspired by the Bluesky Art Show, a challenge to share artwork surrounding a weekly theme each Saturday.