Western Diamondback

Wow! A real sinister looking subject you have here Tonia :^.

I love the way you have the picture composed, with the Diamondback's head in the lower RH quadrant of the frame and with an excellent level of sharpness and detail on it. The muted colours throughout the picture are very appealing too. Thanks for sharing!

Wow, impressive image Tonia. Seems to me you were taking a bit of a risk here. The focus is spot-on, which is key when working with such a shallow DOF. A visible tongue would have put this over the top IMO. Although I am not a big 'sanitizer' myself, I might be very tempted to clone out the OOF twigs just right of the snakes head; or at least burn them a bit.

That's a great comp, Tonia. Nice low POV and you look close. I would clone out the dark thingamabob on the right of the head, and perhaps even try to darken the rock below. Very nice detail right where it counts.

I just love snakes, and this image shows why! Lovely specimen that would have, as Vincent said, been even better if you had somehow got it to show its tongue. I agree about others' comments regarding cloning out the sticks at right angles to each other, and also the bright rocks in the lower part of the frame, to enhance this image.

Thankyou everyone for your comments & critiques! I am a huge fan off all things considered 'creepy-crawly' so this probably won't be the last rattler image. I have not yet tried to do much cloning on a variable background. Do you normally try to do small sections at a time & continually take new background w/ each pass? Any suggestions you may have would be appreciated.