The recent rainy weather  encouraged a large number of snails to venture further afield from the  damp and musky corners they tend to congregate in during drier times. Snails, although not welcomed by gardeners (have a look at my skeletal-looking cauliflower plants to see why!) can make interesting photographic subjects.

The Roman snail in the photograph posted here was making a dash across one of the windows in our home during the recent damp weather. What I like about this image is that we can view the muscles that it uses to move forward. As it was photographed ‘against the light’, I had a pig of a job getting the correct exposure  - I wanted to show the darkness of its muscles in the translucent white part of its body, which is called a sole or snail’s foot.I also wanted to show some of the detail in its shell – using a reflector to bounce back some of the daylight from outdoors was out the question as it would have produced a reflection on the glass. I manouevred the camera so that the white part was against a dark background (neighbour’s garage wall)  and the shell was against the backlit light-coloured plant – both backgrounds are out of focus. I then just had to wait until its two pairs of  tentacles were protruding – the larger pair have an eye on the end of each. It’s likely that the snail in this photo was trailing across the window looking for a mate  as they like to do that when it’s damp. Roman snails are  the largest of the UK resident snails, so a good subject to photograph. The downside about the detail in this photo is that the lady of the house blames me for the marks left by the snail and has tasked me to clean the window – a job I intend to get around to at a snail’s pace!