Texas Morning Glories

One summer morning, early, I was feeding the cats and looked out the back sliding glass door into the back yard and saw two Morning Glories, lit by beams of sunlight. I ran and got my camera, gingerly stepped out into the back yard, slippers covered with dew, and grabbed this image. It's probably not formally photographically correct, but I love the way the sunlight has illuminated the bells of the blossoms. I keep this image on one of my computers as the desktop.

Light is a wonderful thing in photography.

A BowTie Kind of a Day

BowTie is the publisher of Cat Fancy, Cats USA, Kittens USA, Cats and The Popular Cat Series of magbooks. The editor of Kittens USA put out a call for images to be considered for the cover of the 2011 issue, due today, which I've been working on, pulling contenders for the breeds they specified from my archives and then retouching them.

But my other BowTie news is that my contract from this publisher arrived today for Cat Fancy magazine's July 2009 issue profiling the American Shorthair breed. I've posted the four images of mine they selected. I have no idea of placement within the magazine but I sized "Champ" (above) for the 11" x 17" foldout poster, just in case they wanted to use him there. UPDATE 12 May 2009: They did! He's the centerfold -- even though Preston Smith, a good friend of ours and a cat photographer, informed me yesterday that he erronously got the credit for it. I'll have to write to Cat Fancy, once I get my copy of the magazine.

Champ was brought to me by Linda Husbands, the owner, for a studio shoot in my home. Champ's full name is Yankee Star Champagne on Ice and he is a Cream Classic Tabby and White American Shorthair Male, 6 months old at the time of this photograph.

The other three images were:

Ginger Brown's three young kittens, from left to right: Ginfree Phoenix, Ginfree Little Miss Sunshine, and Ginfree Lexus, Breeder/Owner: Ginger Brown) photographed at TICA's 2007 Southeast Regional in Raleigh NC:

Poppy Schofield's "Wiley" (Kelloggs Whole Lotta Love, 5 month old Black Silver Classic Tabby Male Kitten, Breeders: Heinrich & Carly Kellogg, Owners: Poppy Schofield & the Kelloggs) from the TICA 2008 Annual in Arlington TX:

and Rania Abdin's "Prince Nishan" (IW, SGCA KingofHearts Prince Nishan, 1.7 year old Black Silver Classic Tabby Neuter, Breeder: Ann Marie Walters/Owner: Rania Abdin) from TICA's 2007 TIFS cat show in Corpus Christi TX:

Background fabric color for Champ: Chocolate.

Background for Phoenix, Little Miss Sunshine & Lexus: Caribe.

Background fabric for Wiley: Magenta.

Background fabric for Prince Nishan: Imperial Blue.

Christmas Card Cats

Back in late 2001, Ken and I thought it would be a great idea to photograph our own cats and send the image out as a Christmas card that year. We created a "set" with colorful wrapped packages filled with sand (to keep them from shifting around), and then inserted one cat at a time. Little did we know how time-consuming this Christmas card would be!

First we "built" the set (keeping the cats out of the room - a difficult proposition), then put the camera on a tripod (using the Olympus C3000Z, I think) and brought in one cat at a time. We started with Sky, our Blue British Shorthair, since we thought she'd be the easiest. She was. We removed her and brought in Quin, our Black Smoke Maine Coon at the center top, who was a dream to photograph; then Nox, our Black Brit who has almost disappeared on the right side of the image. And lastly, Zak, our Blue and White Maine Coon who is the smartest one of all of them, loves to play (read Christmas ribbon) and the one who I thought might give us the hardest time. But the cats were the easiest part of all! The ribbon on the boxes lost its crispness (especially the pink one between Sky and Quin) so I found another, separated it from the background and pasted it in. I had to take parts of Nox and lighten them up as a separate layer, fuzz around the outsides and paste it back. Otherwise, Nox would look like a black blob. The tissue paper and green ribbon were put in post processing.

My main disappointment with all the work that we put into this image is that this was photographed with a 3 megapixel camera. I will never be able to enlarge this to the size I'd like it to be -- just not enough pixels.

We've been thinking about doing this again, especially since the cats are all eight years older now, but I'm not sure I want an image so close in appearance to this one -- even though it's my favorite!

Exhuberance!

This is Krystofer, a Cream Mackerel Tabby British Shorthair male kitten. He was shot reaching for the cat tease that Ken was holding over his head to coax him to stand up on his hind legs. It is not often I've seen a cat reach for a tease with both arms; usually, the cat uses one arm or the other, sometimes even his mouth! I was lucky with this shot because I was prefocused, ready for the final click of the shutter when the Brit was upright. I usually shoot about three of this pose to get one good one. The face has to be visible (often, one arm or ther other will be in front of the face) and preferably, not looking up at the ceiling -- otherwise that's just a shot of the chin! Many things have to be "right" with this pose to make it a useable image.

Krystofer was brought to me by D'Ann Kovic and Maricia Munden of Inkblotz British Shorthairs in Plano, Texas, for the photo session. He was shot at TICA's Mission City cat show in New Braunfels, Texas, USA, in April of 2006.

Background fabric color: Teal.

Woodlyn Firethorn

This little one on the left is known as "Firey" .. The breeder is Frances Harshaw of Woodlyn Persians and Himalayans from Austin, Texas. Firey has a sister named Woodlyn Foxglove who is called "Foxy" and you will be able to see her in another post with Firey. Frances brought these two girls to our studio when they were about 2.5 months old and we had a ball photographing them. They knew no fear and strutted across the shooting deck!

Background fabric color for Firey: Caribe.

Some "et Cetera"

Daisys on the hills of the Arbuckle Mountains, above

On the way home from the Thunderkatz cat show and A1 Savannahs, we travelled across the Arbuckle mountains in Oklahoma. We took a senic turnout to stretch our legs and found that the mountains were covered with daisys!

I got out the Canon XSi and started popping off some shots.

The wind was blowing so some of these flowers aren't as sharp as I'd like. However, the sky was overcast so the clouds acted as "Mother Nature's softbox" and gave me nice, diffused light.

Texas Star Bengal Kitten Shoot

Stacy Hansen's Texas Star Bengal kittens were photographed today in my studio. We had a wonderful time with them! They were responsive, curious, and overall good models. The above kittens are 8 weeks old and the ones on the outside are F1s. The center girl is an SBT and eligible to be exhibited in the showhall once she reaches 4 months of age. On the left is F1 TexasStar Gypsy and on the right is F1 TexasStar Dallas. What sweet girls they were. Ken had an easy time of it, wrangling these cuties.

Background fabric color: Peat Moss.