Daily Photo: Bella in Blues and Purples
Photographing black cats is a challenge, and in many areas in my house the lighting is a challenge as well, which makes for a lot of neat photos that aren’t quite in focus, just a little soft. Even when I manually set my DSLR, the shutter speed is still fairly slow to let in enough light, and when I speed it up I end up with dark photos that are in focus, mostly, but the dark areas are saturated with other colors and tones.
And that’s where the fun comes in. With any photo like this one of Bella sitting on the steps I’ll take as many photos as I can, changing the manual settings as quickly as I can, so I end up with a large range from overexposed, shaky, blurry photos to dark and moody photos. Somewhere in between I hope to get one good photo—and in this case as Bella stared out the window at the mail delivery person all bundled and looking like a Yeti I got exactly the one I wanted of Bella’s eyes and a nice amount of detail on her face—but none are ever wasted.
This photo was one of the overly dark ones that was perfectly in focus, but the dark areas were too saturated and full of murky olive greens and when lightened were grained with dots of other colors, even in the RAW format. No loss there, I knew just what to do in Photoshop. I let PS find its own auto levels, and out popped pink and purple and blue from all that murky olive green and gray! The lighter halo behind Bella, angel that she is, was just barely evident, though her whiskers converted to purple shadows was really neat. I couldn’t lighten it any more or I lost the details in her eyes. I saturated it further and all those wonderful dots in the background began to differentiate from pale pink and violet to cobalt blue, and that same cobalt showed up on her face. Yes!
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Other daily photos shared on this date
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Mimi’s Cold Paws and…Dogs! 2014
This morning, though it was warmish and drizzling, we still had snow cover. Mimi desperately wanted to visit the yard, but not until…
…I made some solid footprints in the slush for her delicate little paws to step into.
She visited the basement door where we’d spent so many happy mornings in the warm sun of the garden, and the brick patio, but it’s all closed up now.
Although it was VERY exciting under the deck! Apparently lots of critters have been visiting over the winter, and a shelf I’d had suspended from the rafters came down, no doubt under the weight of our overfed groundhog, which has excavated everything under there. Mimi is in this photo though.
What do you do if the black cat is ON the ladder instead of walking underneath it? Once all her exploring was finished she had no interest in getting her tiny little paws cold and wet. I had to carry her from the yard up onto the deck.
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Meet Sasha
Jelly Bean meets Sasha, a Shih Tzu, the subject of one of my next portraits! You can just see him inside the door as he and Sasha are just about eye to eye, but the reflection is confusing.
If possible I like to meet my subjects in the fur, so Sasha and her human stopped by today on the way back from the vet. Sasha has congestive heart failure and though she’s doing well her human wants to have this done now while she’s still looking healthy. She had won the certificate at last summer’s Animal Care and Assistance event to help raise money for veterinary costs at Pittsburgh Veterinary Specialty and Emergency Clinic. This is one of the portraits I’ll be posting as I work, so look forward to seeing more of Sasha!
Not sure about Bean and Mimi, though, as they slowly approach the door after Sasha jumped a few times to say hello!
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And Miko
Then shortly after I met with Sasha and her person, I had to drive to a printer in Pittsburgh to pick up post cards for an upcoming event. No need to worry about anyone getting in the door unnoticed! Miko comes to work each day and guards the entrance door since the plant is noisy and the office is a little farther down a hallway and there’s no person right at the entrance door. Even over the equipment noise Miko heard the door and me. I didn’t have any treats with me at the moment. I’ll have to take extra next time.
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The Telltale Paws, 2013
Giuseppe took the easy way to snuggle on this cold afternoon—instead of climbing in under the comforter, he slid in behind the pillow shams. Easy enough, but he forgot to tuck himself entirely in. Of course, I had to tickle the toes and tug on the tail. I was totally ignored.
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A Little Bit of Catnip…2012
This is the same shy Kelly I mentioned this morning in A Little Bit About Kelly, but it’s Kelly under the influence, about to do a somersault on top of the catnip toy. She’d been avoiding it for a while, afraid to let her guard down around the Fantastic Four who try to come over and play with her and she misinterprets. I brought out a fresh new toys from Aunt Carolyn from My Three Cats, and suddenly Kelly was not concerned at all with any black cats or anything else.
It’s always good to see Kelly relaxing.
Browse some rescued cats and kittens!
All images used on this site are copyrighted to Bernadette E. Kazmarski unless otherwise noted and may not be used without my written permission. Please ask if you are interested in using one in a print or internet publication. If you are interested in purchasing a print of this image or a product including this image, check my Etsy shop or Fine Art America profile to see if I have it available already. If you don’t find it there, visit Ordering Custom Artwork for more information on a custom greeting card, print or other item.
© 2015 | www.TheCreativeCat.net | Published by Bernadette E. Kazmarski
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Weekly schedule of features:
Sunday: Essays, Pet Loss, Poetry, The Artist’s Life
Monday: Adoptable Cats, TNR & Shelters
Tuesday: Rescue Stories
Wednesday: Commissioned Portrait or Featured Artwork
Thursday: New Merchandise
Friday: Book Review, Health and Welfare, Advocacy
Saturday: Your Backyard Wildlife Habitat, Living Green With Pets, Creating With Cats
And sometimes, I just throw my hands in the air and have fun!
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Pawsome!
What a cool way to have fun with those less than purrfect pics we all have 🙂
Nancy and the kitties
Nancy, that’s how I started playing around with filters in Photoshop, trying to fix up customer photos for design, now it’s just for fun.
Love those colors..
They had me right away Bluemoonalone!