North Central Nebraska Family Photographer: Two Snakes And A Beautiful Family

Last Sunday night was a glorious night for a photo shoot. I was meeting up with an awesome family from our community.  Emma was my son Carter's swimming instructor last summer, Christy works at Greater Sandhills Family Healthcare, Tim is our local Chief of Police, and I also got to know Tyler, Ashley, and Dillon a bit better.  Tyler told me about his cookies that he made for 4-H and how science was his favorite subject in school, while Dillon shared about his market steer.  Emma was getting ready to head back to college, and Ashley admitted to "raiding" her closet a bit.  :D

We had a little extra excitement on our shoot too.  I went out to the location early like I always do.  While I was walking around looking at the light and background, I saw some movement out of the corner of my eye.  I looked down, and low and behold, there was a rather lengthy garter snake about a foot to my right.  Jimminy Crickets, I almost stepped right on him!  Well, I couldn't have a snake getting in the way of our shoot, so I found a (LENGTHY) stick and chased it right on out of there.  I then proceeded to comb the area to make sure we didn't have any other visitors during our session. This awesome family arrived, and I did tell them about my encounter, just as a head's up.  Tim, our Chief Of Police here in Atkinson, mentioned that he became a pretty quick runner when snakes were involved.  LOL!  Well, after a bit, Dillon, Tyler and I ventured off for a photo of them together, and just as we were getting situated, Dillon pulled Tyler up because he realized he almost sat on a bull snake!  In ALL my sessions at this location, I have never encountered snakes!

Well, thankfully, those were our only two visitors, and they were harmless.  We relaxed, visited, captured some lovely images, talked about the kids' 4-H projects, and chatted about the awesome lessons that come with being part of such an awesome program.

Thanks for having a sense of humor about our reptile friends!  You all did great, and good-luck with the new school year!