Press Button To Blog - Snail Cakes

Why did the snail start taking photos? He wanted to capture the escar-glow of the moment!

Oof.

It all started on my daily journey into work, walking along a path adorned with various plants and flowers and the varied insects that called them food. Almost everyday I noticed dried-out and crushed snails on the sidewalk (alongside the occasional dead mouse from god knows where). As someone who had a snail collection as a child (plus worms, caterpillars and the like), it broke my old man cold heart to see them suffering like that. I mean sure, being run over by a gargantuen tire is probably a fast death, but I mean, not a whole lotta dignity in dying on the pavement under cheap rubber and some butthole in his best Tour de France spandex outfit. I know they're just bugs (though technically not), but when I can lend a hand and help something or someone, I'll usually try. Which is unfortunately rare nowadays I find. So, I decided to start bringing them home to give them a better life for as long or short as that might be.

And what started out as only one poor soul living in a Tupperware container with holes poked into the lid, which then grew to three as one day I encountered two more hiding in the small respite of shade they could crawl to, until one day I had five of them, and then at its peak I had a collection of nine adorable gastropods who were endentured to me for life at this point. I had created an ad hoc community for these guys. I was a devine savoior, granting them land and sustenance, a true chance at prosparity. Snails are a great low maintenance pet (discounting cleaning copious levels of poo and having to clean their container all the time), and I always loved watching them slowly make their way around their habit looking for food and sleeping spots. It's amusing to see little personalities peaking through when you start learning which ones like sleeping in groups and what food preferences each has.

Of course nobody rides for free so to speak, and I doubted they'd be paying in gas, grass or ass anytime soon (though I'm sure there's Rule 34 out there somewhere for that exact scenario), so I decided to put those little freeloaders to work. I wanted to capture their unique personalities such as they were and to showcase their, ahem, beauty, as well as give them a happy survival meal to official welcome them to a new life. What better way to do that than with a cake, right? Diabetes is the gift that keeps on giving. I'm sure the squished snails on the pavement would have loved to be invited to the party.

I know that cupcakes and carbs aren't good for humans, let alone snails. But since they had just been saved from almost certain death, I figured it was okay to give them a treat. So the animal welfare types, please, feel free to feed your refugee gastropods however you want and leave me and my people alone. We may be a small nation, be we have a first world quality army consisting of a cat, a dog and jumping spiders and we're damn sure not afraid to use them in battle.

The snails seemed to enjoy most of the photoshoot (other than being relocated for better shots), and I got some great results at the same time. This had actually been one of my first few attempts at using my new product lightbox (which I made sure not to let get too hot). I didn't know when I started what an absolute pain having backdrops are for photography. In my head, my artistic "vision" so to speak was usually focused on the subject and the props around it. I hadn't put proper consideration into what's going on behind it, whether it's the visual interference of old tables, stained walls, errant dildos, and the like. Your brain tends to filter out the grab bag of nonsense that's usually left around until you spot the tiny details in photos that you'd prefer to hide. The lightbox offers a visually safe environment to work in where I can focus singularely on what's in front of the lens.

As I wrapped up the initial photoshoot with the snails, I decided to reuse the setup with a different model. I'm cheap and my time is money (whatever small value that is worth), so I figured I'd get the most out of the setup in case what I had just done didn't turn out the way I envisioned. I had previously opened up a souvenir display I had purchased in Thailand when I was younger, that was filled with dehydrated bugs of different species. And although the colours of the particular insect (his identity redacted to secure the safety and privacy of his still living family, or because I'm not certain of his species, either or) I dislodged from his pins really fit in with the bright cupcakes as the backdrop, the rigidness of the dried out corpse ruined some of what I had planned. No matter the angle or placement I tried, it never managed to look remotely realistic in the sense of seemingly like something that once breathed. For all intents it might as well have been a toy. Although obviously it's near impossible to make something dead look convincingly life-like (Joe Biden being the rare exception), the results were further away than I had imagined them to be. I could have tied some fishing wire around each of its limbs and marianetted it around like Weekend at Burnie's and it still would have been a waste of time. But still, it's always worth the effort to try. It's a somewhat pretty set of photos even if they aren't good photos.

Morale of the story is I think people should search for the beauty in unexpected places, such as parasite infested snails fighting for their life in the mid day summer sun. And to appreciate the small joys in life, it's okay to give in to temptation and indulge a little bit – even if it's just with a mouthful of cupcake.

In the end, my snails probably lived longer and happier lives because of me, even if the pastry might have given one of them a tiny tummy ache. We don't talk about diabetes Dave. He lived a fuller life then any of us shellless suckers ever have.