Wise Guys: from absorbing shocks to shock absorbers.(Editor's Note/Gabon and Dubai adventures)(Editorial)

To create his striking portraits of animals in a remote rain forest in the West African nation of Gabon ("Portraits in the Wild," p. 60), photographer Carlton Ward Jr. had to handle a lot of slippery frogs, biting insects, poised-for-flight birds, jumping mice, leapin' lizards, and snakes harmless or otherwise. For the poisonous ones, Ward enlisted the help of the scientists who caught the animals. "Through a team effort," he says, "we were able to make detailed photographs of even the most dangerous snakes."

One day as Ward was photographing a small brown snake, it bit him on the finger. "I held up my hand, snake still dangling, to show one of the herpetologists …