A Texas White Christmas!!!

I know that snow is pretty normal in other parts of the country but to us, in Texas, it's a once-a-year thing, if we're lucky. And usually, not this much snow! I used a flash to catch the snowflakes and then layered the image to decrease the overexposure in the foreground. It's a magical thing and I've never experienced a White Christmas in Texas since coming here in 1992!

Merry Christmas, Everyone!



P.S. I heard on the weather channel here that the last time it snowed for Christmas in Dallas was 1926!

Surprise Visit

We were briefly visited by a young Hawk this Christmas Eve afternoon! By the time I came back with my big camera, he was gone.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

The Flick Cats, left to right:

CH Earendil Nox "Nox," Solid Black British Shorthair Neuter;

Coonalley Eggzaklee Mr Happy Tail "Zak," Blue and White Maine Coon Neuter;

Coonalley Quintus Magnus Gravitas "Quin," Black Smoke Maine Coon Neuter; and

RW SGCA & GP Earendil Sky "Sky," Solid Blue British Shorthair Spay.

This image was created in 2004 for our New Year's Card (we didn't make it in time for Christmas that year). The Brits were 7 years old and the Coons were 3 years old. Not telling you all how old Ken and I were!

Whatever your family celebrates this holiday season, we wish for all of you a healthy 2010, that your dreams are in the process of coming true, and that you are surrounded by those you love.

Ken and Helmi
Nox, Sky, Zak & Quin

Background for this shot: Paprika

WANTED: Rare Breeds

Click on the poster to see an enlarged version! Ken made up this poster for me as we recently have been asked by publishers to supply ALL the breeds ... and I'm missing some or only have two examples of the breed in other cases. However, I did get two more Napoleons at the Corpus Christi TIFS show a week ago (thanks, Lonnie and Dawn Lott!).

If you have one of these breeds I'm missing, please check my show calendar (click on "Calendar" at the right) to see if we'll be at a show near you. Then email me and I'll get approval from the Show Manager and send you a sign up form.

High Key Christmas Card Attempt

This is a high key image of a white Persian on a white background, used for the cover of KOT magazine, a cat magazine in Poland, for their April issue in 2008.

I first heard about "high key" from other photographers ... loosely meaning that the image's midtones are high on the exposure scale, or bright and white. To me, high key images look very elegant. Therefore, I wanted to make a Christmas Card in 2002 that used whites, pale blues, silvers and lilacs to showcase our cats. Unfortunately, I didn't realize that having two essentially black cats would not be in keeping with "high key" ... live and learn. So the above was the result.

After Ken and I shot this (it took days to create the set and then shoot, with a tripod, the cats, two by two), I decided to stick to the more saturated and low key looks that we're known for.

Background: we used white background paper for this shot.

Lighter Than Air

Leospride Easy Street of Wild Beach "Easy,"

a 4 month old Brown Spotted Tabby bred by Robin Chamberlain and owned by Melissa Bruise of Wild Beach Bengals.

Once in a run of photo shoots, you have that lucky shot when you review your images and you see the unusual. In the photo above, "Easy" gave me that shot. Only one of his paws is touching the ground and it's his left front paw on the box. The other nice thing about this image is that with a Bengal, photography showing off the coat is mandatory, so the more stretch you can get out of the cat, the better -- as stretching will show off the shape of the rosettes (in this case) and the pattern, acreage, contrast of the coat, as well as the musculature of the cat and the dynamics of action.

"Easy" was photographed at the 2009 TICA Annual in Orlando, Florida, USA.

Thanks, "Easy!"

Background for Easy: Peat Moss.

Congratulations to Bengals Illustrated

Congratulations to Brigitte McMinn, Editor of Bengals Illustrated, for winning two awards from the Cat Writers Association (CWA) recently! I am thoroughly impressed with Brigitte's work as the graphic design and reproduction quality of her magazine won out over many mainstream magazines from the CWA. You can read more about this at http://www.catwriters.org/

And thanks to Jan Harrell for bringing me Induna, above, to photograph for her 2008 Christmas Card at the Waxahachie Show last November. Jan brought the "wild" Christmas ornaments and I placed the ribbon on Induna, who was such a good boy and held the pose while I walked back from the shooting table to my area with my camera and took the shot.

Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas and Seasons Greetings to all our friends and Gentle Readers out there!

Background used for Induna in this shot: Claret.