The Great Anole Photo That Got Away

Reader Mona G writes: “I like to watch anoles in my garden in the Florida Keys where they are ubiquitous. I also take photos of them. I wanted to tell a funny story about one of my photo shoots. This took place a few years before digital cameras were invented. The days of using film! I had a very large, long and heavy zoom lens. It was summertime and very hot. I sat in one spot observing a large anole doing what they do when another anole comes into their territory. He used his dewlap often and the sunlight was lighting it up making it so beautiful. It appeared to be all shades of red,yellow, orange and hot pink. It is not easy to catch that dewlap moment. So I sat sweating profusely and eventually aching from being tensed up into certain postures to get certain angles. I was so excited about the photos I was sure I would have at least 3 or 4 perfect pix out of my roll of 36. I prepared to take them directly to be processed. As I started to rewind the film back into it’s canister… something didn’t feel right. I thought “oh no. The film has gone too far and has detached from the can.” NO that was not the problem..the problem was that there was NO FILM in my %&^^&*&^%#!!! camera…I LOVE DIGITAL!! Anyone have any stories like this to share? Also about this chameleon pix..is this a pet? Or is it in nature? I hope someone enjoyed my story. I STILL take anole pix very often. They are always interesting to observe. I often leave a banana peel on a table and they come to eat the fruit flies. They seem to be familiar with me. Not tame but more relaxed in my presence as time goes by. I have also become familiar with certain lizards who live in a certain area. They definitely have there own home turf. Thanks for reading. I am attaching a recent night shot. This anole sleeps in the same area every night. I woke him up and you can see he is not very happy about it!

Jonathan Losos

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2 Comments

  1. Mona, I’ve bungled more anole photographs in the *digital* age than I care to admit! My recurring problem is focus. I often can’t trust or rely on auto-focus with anoles because of surrounding foliage and the like, so I stick to manual focus. Trick is –even after years of photographing– I sometimes invert the direction of focus. So, a quick spotting of an male anole doing its dewlappin’ dance of awesome will result in an impressive set of fuzzy green and red photos. Heh. I actually keep some of these because they make for cool abstract image material. Even out of focus, anoles are gorgeous *and* carry significant use value! RAH!

  2. Pat Shipman

    LOL. All I can say is that digital cameras have greatly increased my proportion of usable photos. I do have a large number of completely out-of-focus anole shots, though.

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