This Northern Red Salamander was rescued from the swiming pool (the reason it is so clean). In return for the rescue, it agreed to sit still (momentarily) for me (it was actually warming up).
This picture was extremely easy to take. I opened a new Canon ST-E3-RT Speedlite Transmitter and a new Canon 600EX-RT Transmitter, put batteries in both, powered both on, set the flash to slave mode (press a button), put the flash in an XXS Chimera softbox and mounted it to a lightstand and mounted the ST-E3-RT to the Canon EOS 5D Mark III.
I placed the subject on a mangrove branch on a black back-painted-glass desk and draped a piece of velour fabric over a box behind it.
This is my favorite of the shots captured in the short time it took the salamander to warm up and be ready for release.