A Funny Good Snapshot Of Your Cat? Ha! Only by accident!

Have you noticed how many people who own beautiful kittens and cats don't have a really good collection of pictures from them?

Especially when have seen some good pictures from their home, their dogs, parrots or any other pet they have. So I wouldn't say it is because they do not know how to take good pictures.

I myself was a professional photographer for a magazine similar to National Geographic and I have taken pretty good pictures (you can see them in my page, www.r1313.info). Then you can see only a dozen or more pictures of Matilda, the cat I have been sharing my life with for over 13 years. How come? Is it that she is not a good subject? No. Is it that I have no interesting in taking pictures of her? Not at all! Isn't she beautiful? She is. And so is Dalmata. And so was Malu. In fact, Malu was gorgeous and so was Kickey. But I had no more than 10 pictures of each them. What gives?

To take a good picture of a cat is an ordeal with constant fits of frustration.

A saint in long robe does not have enough holy patience one needs for this challenging purpose. Everybody who knows cats is well aware of what I call the "wrong side of the door" syndrome. A cat is always on the wrong side of a closed door, trying to walk to the other side.

Matilda, for instance, sleeps in the cutest positions, paws up, tail in the middle of her belly, her head all twisted, and so on. I have never been able to take a picture of her when she sleeps like that. I need only to get my camera, and she wakes up, stands up and comes to me trying to sniff the camera. I have found no way to take a picture of her, dunking her paw in the water, or drinking out of the faucet, or things like that.

What was the solution? Movie pictures! Sure! Get a movie camera and take some moving pictures. That would capture those cute moments.

You want a cat to stay dead still? Point a movie camera in his direction. It is like they knew!

After several useless intents to capture the constant fights between Matilda and Malu, rolling down the stairs, fighting under the dining room table and moving the chairs around in the process, and FREEZING the moment they saw the camera, a friend of mine and I decided to set up the camera on automatic for six hours of tape and left the house for that long. "When we come back we would have a very fascinating display of action," we thought.

Back home, we watched the tape for six hours, afraid to fast foward and miss something. It was total frustration.

Both cats, Matilda and Malu, did nothing but to sleep one next to the other, maybe an occasional visit to the liter box and to drink water and eat some food. No fight, no nothing!

Then I hate it when friends came to visit and saw them so cute and playful, and asked, "How come you never take pictures of them? They are so cute and playful!"

Copyright © Ralph Rewes
September 19, 2007