Elaphe obsoleta

A black rat snake (Elaphe obsoleta) at Chester State Park, Chester, SC.

I'm not quite as close as it looks; although this snake is mostly harmless (it will bite if threatened, but is not venomous and is usually non-agressive), I didn't know that at the time and gave it plenty of space. Besides, my son was with me and I wanted him to learn to give snakes a great deal of distance no matter what kind they are.

I shot at 300mm and then the image was cropped a bit more to what you see here.

Canon Digital Rebel XT / 350D
Sigma 70-300 f/4-5.6 DG APO Macro @300mm
Aperture Priority | ISO 200 | F/5.6 | 1/250 sec.
Processed from RAW in Canon DPP ("Cloudy" white balance, EV+0.83)
Crop, levels, vignette, and sharpen in Photoshop CS3

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