Thursday, March 28, 2024
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Daily Photo Reprise: The Eyes Have It, 2010

two black cats with eyes

Not only one of my favorite photos of these two, but a momentous one…do you believe there was a time I wasn’t sure I could find a new photo of my cats each day?! Read to the bottom for more on this concept.

Mewsette and Giueseppe open their eyes briefly to be photographed, otherwise don’t move a whisker, then go back to sleep.

Just as it was on this day in 2010, this is (one of) today’s feature photo on Today, my daily photo blog. But you won’t have to go there to see what I wrote about them on that day! This was a while before I began posting daily photos of my cats in August 2010 (seems like longer than that for some reason, not out of photos yet), and I often posted more cat photos there than here on The Creative Cat.

So here is what I had to say:

Eyes are striking no matter the species, and cats’ eyes especially because they are usually very bright colors. In a black cat’s fur, they look like gems and often appear quite large in proportion to their facial features because of the contrast. Here they look like crescent moons in a deep night sky.

Mewsette and Giuseppe are brother and sister, two siblings of a litter of four I fostered and who still live with me. It’s a long story, but in the end they became such excellent art subjects for photography, sketches, painting and block prints. Even as adults, they are still close and tend to hang out in pairs or threes, and they sleep in a heap like kittens do, though they range form 10 to 13 pounds each.

While they look identical at first glance, I have always been able to see the differences in their features. Part of the fun of working with their images is to show those differences, and their eyes are one feature unique among each of them in color, shape and angle.

The light in this photo is somewhat cool coming from a north window with a lot of reflection from snow, so their eye colors are a little muted, but Mewsette, on the left, has very light, bright green eyes, the greenest of the litter, with very little yellow. Giueseppe’s, on the other hand, are a warm yellow amber, just enough orange so the yellow doesn’t appear lemon. Mewsette’s eyes are round like all her other features—face, head, paws, rounded ears, blunt nose. Giuseppe has wide oval eyes that are pointed at the corners, and he also has an elongated face with a prominent nose, large ears and a long body, as everything seems to be stretched.

I photograph them all the time and often use their images in my own designs as well as selling their images as stock photography. This litter is only the most recent in my household—I have about 30 years of cat photos and have the last ten years of my digitals on my website. You can see them in action in almost every entry on my blog The Creative Cat, and on my Marketplace blog you can see them in my Animal Sympathy Cards. I have eight galleries of them in the photo section on my website.

Black cats can be difficult to photograph, especially if you don’t like to use a flash, as I do not; it tends to reflect off of black fur a little harshly, creating a photo that has too much contrast, highlights flashed out and missing detail, shadows saturated with black, and very little in between. A good bit of bright ambient light from more than one direction helps to capture the details without flashing highlights. My camera is a digital SLR, but I still use many of the same lenses and photo techniques I used with my film SLR in opening up the F-stop as far as I could while reducing shutter speed to avoid motion blur and ensure a sharp clarity of all those details I had worked to preserve.

So there you have it, one of the entries that led me to consider posting daily photos of my cats here along with daily photos of other subjects on Today, which I had begun in June 2009. I was concerned I wouldn’t be able to find a good photo of my cats every day, or that people would get bored with them. Neither one seems to be the case!

 


Announcing the 2013 BlogPaws Nose-to-Nose Awards!

An awful lot of bloggers bring you an awful lot of information and entertainment each day.
If you enjoy what you read, here’s a way to thank them all!

You have the chance to nominate your favorite blogs in 12 different categories, and a panel of professionals judge the finalists you’ve chosen.

Nominations are now open, through 3:00 PM EST Friday, March 8.

The categories are:

  • Best Blog Design: judged on overall design elements of the blog homepage/landing page.
  • Best Blog Writing: judged on overall writing skill – is the message clear to the reader? Is the writing well-done? Is the blog post free of errors?
  • Best Humor Blog: judged on overall sense of humor – does it make us laugh?
  • Best Bark Blog: judged on the content as it applies to dogs and dog parents.
  • Best Meow Blog: judged on the content as it applies to cats and cat parents.
  • Best Wiggle Blog: judged on focus of blog toward non-traditional pets (i.e. ferrets, guinea pigs, chickens, etc.)
  • Best New Blog: less than one year old, with good content and engagement.
  • Best Cause Blog: judged on message, purpose and results as demonstrated on the blog.
  • Best Video on a Blog: judged independently (one video per blog); is it well done, focused, creative and purposeful?
  • Best Photo on a Blog: judged independently (one photo per blog); is it well done, focused, creative and purposeful?
  • Best Facebook Design: judged on overall design of Facebook header and use of special Facebook page features.
  • Best Twitter Design: judged on overall design elements for Twitter profile background.

I have my favorites who I read each day! I’m sure you do too, so click on over to BlogPaws, read the information, and vote!
It’s one way we can thank them for providing quality content we enjoy reading, day in and day out.

Here is the information you will need about The Creative Cat:

Blog Homepage: www.TheCreativeCat.net

Contact Name for Blog Owner: Bernadette Kazmarski

Contact Email for the Blog Owner: [email protected]

As part of the nomination you are requested to explain in a few sentences why you’ve chosen your nominee.

 

Click here to go to the nomination page.

 

Mimi and her Fantastic Four children, as well as Cookie and Kelly, and Peaches and Namir and all the members of my feline household, and all the kitties whose stories you’ve shared and who’ve found homes through our readers thank you, even if we are not your nominee, because you help all of us.


Browse some rescued cats and kittens!

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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.

Bernadette

From health and welfare to rescue and adoption stories, advocacy and art, factual articles and fictional stories, "The Creative Cat" offers both visual and verbal education and entertainment about cats for people who love cats, pets and animals of all species.

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