A foreword in case you came here to improve your cats photography skills or are looking for a way to get ride of your neighbor’s tomcat; this is no tutorial, nor technical post, neither an assassin’s guide. It’s rather an admonition of why I photograph cats so often.
This post is dedicated to the photographers among us who suffer from GAS. (GAS = gear addiction syndrome).
Like many photographers, I love new gear. I miserably fall over and over again to the marketing sirens telling me that I’ll make better photos with their new gear.
Fortunately (or unfortunately from a marketers point of view), the money I can spend on gears is limited. Very limited. But I still manage to buy way too much gear than I need.
Now back to the cats. Whenever I receive a new lens, what I want to do is test it. How sharp it is, how fast it focuses and so on. But, there are a few things that I’ve noticed happened when I’m eager to test a new lens.
1. It’s time to fix dinner. About 90% of the time. It might have something to do with the postman/delivery man schedule.
2. It’s pouring cats and dogs. The weather is dull and I have all lights turn on within the house in the middle of day. Forget about a bright sunny day to test the lovely new lens.
3. Taking pictures of my children is what first brought me to photography. So, when I miserably try to justify a new compulsive purchase, it’s to take better pictures of the children. But the truth is, they grow up (thankfully). They’re at school most of the day and now in adolescence, they don’t like being photographed. At all.
4. As both the weather and kids failed to justify my new purchase, I must rely on my other favorite subject; cats (as I have no dogs and..well, I don’t particularly like dogs anyway. Don’t get me started about the neighbor’s).
That is when the fun starts.
Cats and teenagers have this in common; they don’t like being photographed. In practice, that leads to:
1. a cat who usually sleeps 23h/day decides to go out in the rain at the exact moment I turn the camera on.
2. put itself in the darkest place in the house, so that even if I manage to grab a shot, the high ISO ruins the test.
3. time for toilet. Lick. Lick. Lick some more. I end up with a lot of self licking blurry cats.
4. turn its back to me, preferably in front of a bright window, so the contrast will ruin the photo a little more. I have a large collection of back lit cat ass.
5. move with an excruciating accuracy; exactly between the moment the camera acquires focus and I release the shutter button. Some more blurry cats.
And when I eventually manage to have a more or less in focus cat, well. That leads to these kind of pose. *sigh*.
