Meet Mortimer - KillerPix Reptiles Contest Entry

One cold Autumn day in 2013, my girlfriend Kim and I were on a walk near the river when Kim suddenly stopped on crouched down to the ground. She almost stepped on a baby turtle! It had a long way to go before it would reach the water, and quite a rough path to travel. We looked at it really closely, and it seemed like it was struggling to move. Its shell measured approximately 1 inch in diameter which is small enough than any swan, goose or duck could do significant damage to the little fella if they wanted to, or even eat him. We didn't think things looked very good for the lil guy so we took him home to try and help him out a little, even if it's just for a couple days.

Well, Long story short... We ended up naming him Mortimer, and keeping him for nearly 2 years before helping him learn to hunt (He was a natural) and then releasing him back in to the wild.

Anyways we spent 2 holiday seasons with Mortimer as part of the family, the second of which I shot portraits of myself, Kim, my parents, and Mortimer!

This first image (Above) is my entry to KillerPix Contest #21! This weeks theme is Reptiles, and I'm hoping Mortimer will capture the hearts of the people of Steemit, just like he did Mine and Kim's. I set up a miniature studio space to take Mortimer's portrait just like the rest of our family. He was very patient and tame, just like usual. Though he's very adventurous and tried exploring a couple times.

Mortimer is a Common Snapping Turtle also known as 'chelydra serpentina' We gave him lots of attention and would regularly interact with him out of the his tank, and so he wasn't afraid of us like any wild turtle would be. Below is a shot of our family portraits in the entry to my parents house along the wall, complete with our favorite reptile.

Don't worry, there will be plenty more adorable pictures of Mortimer down the road, here on my Steemit page. I'm posting my archive of work chronologically in my #photobio posts.