Cat Angels

All images Copyright 2010, 2011 Cat Angels Pet Adoptions. All Rights Reserved

BACKSTORY
We first met Darrell Massengill and Diane Olson a few years ago when we were shooting at a cat show in Raleigh, North Carolina. They live in the area and had asked if they could sit in on a few photo sessions at the cat show and observe our techniques. They were also a cat photographer/cat wrangler team but, unlike Ken and I, who do this for a livelihood, their motivation is a far nobler calling: they do it to save lives. Diane and Darrell are part of a cat and kitten rescue group in Cary, North Carolina, called "Cat Angels." They photograph each rescue cat and kitten that comes in and post the images to the Cat Angels website to give each kitty a better chance for adoption.

http://www.catangelsnc.org/

Diane and Darrell understand that winsome portraits of their subjects are more likely to attract people to adopt them, so they were very interested in seeing our shooting, wrangling, and lighting methods as well as asking us questions about our equipment.

A year or two later, when they asked to sit in on some more shoots the next time we were in Raleigh, we were glad to see Darrell and Diane again. They are so friendly, gracious, and appreciative that we were happy to help. It was apparent that they were putting into practice what they were learning from us.

Diane Olson, Helmi and Darrell Massengill at Irregardless (Ken took the picture)

After the cat show, they took us to dinner at Irregardless, a great local restaurant, where we enjoyed spending time with them and swapping "war stories" about trying to coax decent portraits out of uncooperative kitties. Compared to their challenges, struggling to get appealing poses from freaked-out feral kittens/cats, we decided that we had it much easier with show cats who are generally easy to deal with.

Earlier this year, Diane sent us a calendar of her and Darrell's work, which Cat Angels published and sells to help subsidize the organizations operating expenses.

Accompanying each month's featured kitten is a little story about it.

This piece is quite obviously a labor of love -- as is everything that all those very special people in cat rescue do -- and we found it to be thoroughly charming.

Recently, Diane sent us the cover image for next year's calendar (below) that she and Darrell are currently working on.

Copyright Cat Angels Pet Adoptions

THE POINT OF THIS STORY
More recently, Diane wrote and asked if we could help her rescue group with a favor. That's what this story is all about. Their Cat Angels rescue group has lost the lease on their current facility, which the landlord now wants to occupy to expand his own business, so the rescue group has to move. And they want to double the size of their present space in order to double their adoption rate.

To help cover the additional expenses that this move will entail, Darrell and Diane have entered the Pepsi Refresh Grant Competition by producing this 59 second video:

www.refresheverything.com/catangels

WILL YOU HELP ME HELP THEM?

To win this competition and get the grant, Cat Angels needs to get the most votes for their video, and Diane told me today that they are in 2nd place, but the competition is fierce with positions changing daily among the top contenders. So I'm posting this to my Blog to encourage all of you readers to vote for their video. Ken and I are voting every day, but we need your help, too!

You can vote every day in May by three different ways:

• 
  
  Through Facebook


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  By getting a free Pepsi Refresh Account


• 
  
  By texting 106148 to 73774 (PEPSI)

If you are reading this on Facebook or on my Blog, it's quite likely that, like me, you are a cat lover. And for one reason or another you may not be able to be directly involved in cat rescue like Diane and Darrell and so many other dedicated people who do this are. But you can make a difference by helping these big-hearted volunteers save the lives of more homeless cats and kittens. The $50,000 grant prize they can win -- with your help -- could save a lot of kitties!

Please take a moment to click on the above link to the Cat Angels video and vote for it, then vote again each day for the rest of this month. And share the link with your friends on Facebook! Thank you!

I will let you know how this turns out, but YOU can influence the outcome.

Kelly's Art Glass -- et cetera!

Kelly Crouch is a customer of mine from the first year I started cat photography. She bred Oriental Shorthairs and Maine Coons. Lately, she has branched out into glass and she has named her new company Glasstasy. Ken and I shot eleven pieces of her art glass she created. Below are my favorites:

This is my most favorite piece. It is almost a half round. Kelly has named it "Glacier." I want one.

This is a view of the inside of "Glacier" ... again, stunning.

Kelly used a very expensive material called dichroic glass on this piece. "Dichroic glass is glass containing multiple micro-layers of metal oxides which give the glass dichroic optical properties," reference from Wikipedia. We photographed this same piece on a white background and the dichroic properties did not appear, but on a black background, it is obvious!

Yellow and lime green six-sided candy bowl.

Here is a side view of the same bowl.

Pinwheel candy dish.

This is a very elaborate piece -- note that Kelly handpainted ivy leaves on the piece in gold. The edges are ruffled (not sure of the terminology here). I'd be happy to update this post with the correct terminology if anyone wants to enlighten me.

This is a rectangular bowl with a quilt like pattern. Graphically very simple and pleasing.

The brown piece, pictured above, is very large, about the size of a large tray. Reminds me of a quilt top I made some years ago. Kelly referred to it as the Brown Dart Board!

Green and white round candy dish.

This piece looked much better photographed on white (which will not come across well on my blog, since my background is black). It needs light to show it off as it is nicely translucent.

A candy dish, pink and purple. Photographed against black, you cannot see that the center of the dish is a deep purple as are the dark pinwheels. Another piece that showed up better against the white background.

If you are interested in any of these pieces, please email Kelly at glasstasy@austin.rr.com I am waiting for her to have an exhibition of her work! She should probably have a few more pieces before she has a show, but if she has one, we're going!

All pieces photographed using a Canon EOS 5D Mark II against a black background.

A Short Vacation to Florida

I hate to miss a sunset. Since we were still on the road to the condo, I got the sunset in the side mirror while Ken was driving.

Then Ken pulled over to the side of the road to get the Choctawhatchee Bay. It is SO much better to take a photo when the car isn't moving, especially when it's dark outside!

Monday morning, this was the sunrise from the balcony of our condo.

And there was a crane or waterfowl of some sort, waiting for his/her breakfast to appear on the morning tide.

This is the view to the West after the sun was starting to rise.

Our good friends, Agi and Bill Vetter (who were in our wedding 12 years ago) washing the sand off their feet. You can see how white the sand is and it's extremely fine. Your feet squeak when you walk on it!

The walkway to the beach ... I love the look of this with the cobblestone walk to the wood of the stairs and the free standing shower. A serene and quiet place with the roar of the surf ever present. A great way to drift off to sleep in the arms of Morpheus, hearing the rhythm of the waves crashing on the beach.

It rained on Wednesday and half of Thursday, but the Pelicans still made their forays down the coast.

And our "goodbye" sunset was tonight with this unbelieveable display of color. So we drive back home to Dallas/Fort Worth and start madly packing for the trip to Japan on Tuesday. Recharged for another cat show!

A Little Love Letter to Ken

Anniversary Tulips from Ken

I am very lucky to be married to a romantic man. He remembers our anniversary, birthdays and Valentine's Day much better than I do. We married late in life and I've only been married to him for twelve years but we've crammed a lifetime into those years!

Ken was the one who encouraged my photography. He got me a digital camera for HIS birthday! This was back in 1999. What a difference it made ... I could instantly see what I was doing wrong and could correct it, right there. Before then, I was using film and would be lucky to get one good image out of three rolls of film. Ken would ask me, "What was your f-stop? What was the exposure setting? Speed? Look at this image and tell me what is in focus?" I was clueless. But when digital came out, all the settings were there. And because of Ken, I became a Cat Photographer.

Now we are able to travel together, work together, play together, live a full life, with cats -- together. All because of cat photography. Sure, there are rough patches, but they don't last long. And it's usually me that gets bent out of shape or acts like a drama queen! But we end up laughing about it and remembering what, in the long run, is important.

Remembering Dancer by Ken Flick

It will be a long time before Helmi and I forget a little Bengal kitten called "Dancer," who we had the pleasure of photographing last Sunday at the Wichita, Kansas, show. I could feel her trembling from the moment her owner placed her on our shooting stage, so I asked, pretty sure of the answer I'd get, "Is this Dancer's first show?" We were told that, yes, this was her first show and, more than that, this was only her second day away from the home where she was born six months ago. So this little kitten was in a strange place, surrounded by the sights and sounds of a hundred strange cats, in the care of her new owner who was essentially a stranger to her, and now being handled by a strange man -- me -- in a room full of bright flashing lights. No wonder Dancer was trembling. And I'm not sure she ever stopped trembling during the entire photo session.

But I'll tell you what: this scared little kitten was so courageous and so ready to please that she let me put her through all the paces and coax her into all the poses that I would expect of the most cooperative veteran show cat. And Dancer's performance was especially welcome to us, since we had had a number of tough subjects earlier that day.

Unlike cat show judges, whose criteria for evaluating cats are strictly those of a beauty contest without the talent or personality component, Helmi and I judge the cats we shoot based upon their willingness and ability to perform for the camera. Our feline subjects earn our admiration if they are cooperative, poised, playful, good natured and photogenic.

Our job is to produce the best possible portraits of the cats our customers bring us, yet we cannot deliver on this if the cat is shy, ill at ease, cowering, camera-phobic, frozen stiff or freaked out and bent on escape. Most Oriental breeds tend to be this way and despite our best efforts and all the patience we can muster, we are seldom satisfied with what we are able to get from these cats -- and always surprised when their owners are. At the other extreme are Maine Coons, who are such easy going, eager to please, rewarding to shoot subjects that Helmi and I decided early on to get two of our own.

So, yes, we judge the cats we shoot at every show, too. And often, in the evening after the show is over or on the drive home the next morning, we will talk about the cats we shot and tell each other which ones were our favorites. And on the drive home from Wichita on Monday, it became clear that Dancer, the little Bengal kitten with the big heart, had stolen both of our hearts. Despite her understandable insecurity at being wrenched away from the only home she had ever known, she stepped up to the plate and performed at a level that a number of our Wichita cats never attempted. We don't give out rosettes, but Dancer was a big winner in our eyes. She gave the kind of photogenic performance that enabled us to win -- she made our job look easy to our customer and enabled us to deliver images the customer would like.

It is always heartbreaking news to hear that a cat we have known has died, especially when it is a kitten who has left so soon before its time. And it was even more tragic to learn this about a kitten who had so recently won our respect and affection and was still very much on our minds. But this is what happened on Thursday (yesterday) when we learned that little Dancer, who had not eaten for days and had spent the previous couple of days in the care of a vet, was diagnosed with terminal feline leukemia and put to rest. It's enough to make a grown man cry. And that's not just a figure of speech.

It will be a long time before Helmi and I forget Dancer, the brave little Bengal kitten with the big heart. The world has lost a real winner.

Bus Ads

2010 TICA Annual Cat Show Bus Ad: Persian

2010 TICA Annual Cat Show Bus Ad: Ragdoll

2010 TICA Annual Cat Show Bus Ad: Siberian

2010 TICA Annual Cat Show Bus Ad: Maine Coon

2010 TICA Annual Cat Show Bus Ad: Bengal

2010 CFA Santa Monica Cat Show Bus Ad: Ocicat

2009 CFA Santa Monica Cat Show Bus Ad: Oriental Shorthair.

This is probably my favorite bus ad because it is very eyecatching. Art Graafmans did a wonderful job of making the best use of the cat image while giving pertinent information.

If you're in California, you'll be able to see Bus Ads promoting the CFA Santa Monica Cat Show in Los Angeles, and ads promoting the TICA Annual in Santa Clara. Ken created all the ads for the TICA Annual in Santa Clara and we supplied the cat images for the CFA Santa Monica Cat Show.

Going to Japan!

Design and graphic art by Jun Hagiwara

I am so fortunate. Not only are we going to Japan to do the CFA Ruban d'or Chat Fanciers Show in November, 2010, but Jun Hagiwara created this beautiful ad for me. It shows the ten backgrounds we'll be flying with and our names for them.

This will be the first CFA show we've done outside of the United States! Thank you, Jun, for a stunning ad.