PHOTOGRAPHY: TAKING BAD PICTURES

I take a lot of photographs but I wouldn't dare call myself a photographer. Hell, I'm not really interested in photography as a hobby, though I can appreciate it as an art and as a skill, the aesthetic aspect of it. What I do is take snaps. Of cats. And any other animal I encounter along the way too. But as someone who spends a fair chunk of his time involved in cat rescuing, what I photograph is cats.

I do this for two reasons. I just like looking at cats and at images (still or moving, whatever) of cats. I want to keep a photographic record of all the cats we're involved in helping. I don't keep notes on them all, I just take snaps.

Taking a decent, or even a less than mediocre, photo of a cat is a hard thing to do because they can be constantly in motion and even when seeming relaxed or asleep, they can be moving in a fraction of a second. It's even harder as I take many pictures in small areas such as cages and from awkward angles, where it's impossible to achieve anything remotely aesthetically pleasing. 

Today, however, I actually managed to take something I consider the best cat photograph I have ever taken. I'd picked up and brought a couple of cats over to Carol who looks after our rescued cats. As usual, I stopped to chat and make a fuss of any kittens she was keeping in the house and of the various cats, some permanent, some up for re-homing, and she has quite a few of them. Her house is also immaculately clean, predominantly white with some wood grain lino for contrast. I didn't have a lot of time but there were no distractions so I took the opportunity to try for some more considered shots than usual. Below are a handful of my favourites. I've done some cropping with Picassa but that's all; indeed I'm not capable of much more than that when it comes to altering photographs. Maybe I should look round for an evening class sometime.

I deliberately tried to get a triangular shape for this one. It would be better if the tails were all in shot.

Using some judicious cropping, I've managed to get this lovely friendly little girl in the focus of a narrow frame.

I like this one for the vertical frame and how the animals are all at different heights and with lots of long straight lines. Stop me if I'm being pretentious.

 

Only a small thin crop down the left hand side here. A cat on every step would have been wonderful. And impossible.

Saving the best till last, I love the sheer simplicity of this. Unlike the others, there is not the smallest extraneous detail. Just the cat and the lino.

I'm putting all these and a few more minus text up on my cat rescuing blog.