The big hole at the top of the snake's mouth is the choanal opening into the back of the nasal passages. This allows the snake to breathe easily through its nose with its mouth closed. The tiny hole at the front of the mouth is the opening to the vomeronasal organ (Jacobson's organ) which is responsible for interpreting molecules stuck to the tongue into the snake's sense of smell. You can see the glottis (tracheal opening) at the bottom of the mouth in both pictures. The tongue is encased in a sheath in front of the glottis with just the tips protruding on the bottom picture as reddish dots. The esophageal opening is closed, but lies behind the wide open tracheal opening. It is located in the top picture just to the right of the large vein running down the snake's right (your left) side where that tiny pool of saliva is sitting.
The camera is a Fuji Finepix 3800 and does a fairly good job, although I'm hoping to upgrade soon. It's got its limitations, but does a decent job as a point and shoot camera.
As to posing the snake, the real difficulty was getting a picture with the mouth closed. This little one was NOT happy about leaving his/her egg, evidently. It was a bit testy, striking at anything that moved...me, its siblings, a water drop on the side of the box. It has since calmed down, but it did allow me to get some beautiful "singing" shots. :grin01: