Tuesday, March 19, 2024
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From The Archives: Chasing Rainbows, February 28, 2008

three black cats
The enchantment begins, chasing rainbows on the wall.

Giuseppe, Mewsette and Mr. Sunshine are fixated on the tiny rainbow dot from the window crystal slipping around on the wall (after I tapped the crystal to set it spinning, of course).

I was fixated on all those yellow-gold eyes in all that black fur like gems. They are seven months old here, and you can probably see in these photos, and in the one of them from the day before near the bottom of this post, how enchanted I had become by looking at them. One at a time I might have been able to manage, but they did things in groups and all those eyes, the silhouettes, the random tails, finally got to me. It’s really what made me less inclined to work hard to find adopters. The rest is history.

three black cats
Giuseppe, Mewsette and Mr. Sunshine are ready!

 

And we get back to the story. I took a bunch of photos of them trying to just get one photo of them all looking up—the one above—but I got a lot like this, and there the habit of multiple photos began,trying to get them all looking at me.

three black cats
Lots of photos trying to get all three looking at me.

And then finally Giuseppe and Mr. Sunshine strike! But the elusive rainbow disappears into my bedroom.

three black cats
There it goes!

As the rainbow began to fade I decided I wanted to get a photo of all three of them jumping so I got a piece of white cord to dangle above them. They weren’t done with chasing things anyway so they played along. Look at Giuseppe’s claws! Impressive even at that age. And look at all those whiskers!

three black cats
Giuseppe gets it!

Jelly Bean joined them rather late in the game and though I hoped to get a photo of the four of them together, no luck in that.

three black cats
Little faces and Jelly Bean.

But I did get Mewsette looking as cute as can be with the big head tilt and the round eyes!

 

From the Archives in Previous Years

The Little Four on the Bed, February 27, 2008

four black cats on bed
The Little Four on the bed.

Okay, it’s all in the eyes. At seven months old they were still sleeping in a heap, and I was hooked. Clockwise from the top: Mewsette looking at me, Mr. Sunshine looking up, Jelly Bean looking at me and Giuseppe in the lower right corner.

I had to photograph this heap of black kittens. But it was quarter to 5 p.m. and the light was bright enough for me to see what was happening, but not bright enough to get a good photo. I took several other photos before this one, but when I saw them all laid out and saw all those eyes, I knew something had changed…and the rest is history.

When I turned on the light I saw that Cookie was with them too! The light wakes them up.

four black cats and tortie
I woke them up!

They had all been sleeping on the bed with big little tortie sister Cookie, who they adored. In fact, I saw them on the bed with her so frequently that I have no doubt they began sleeping on the bed because that was always Cookie’s afternoon napping spot, and they always joined her. That old digital camera was really having issues and not centering images (as you see in the one above and the lead photo), so I barely caught Cookie in any of these photos. Now they are awake, but she decided to keep on sleeping.

four cats and tortoiseshell cat on bed
What?!

I walked around to the foot of the bed to use my chest of drawers to rest the camera and get a clearer photo of them all.

four black cats on bed
We’re awake.

To my surprise, 12 years later, I am still photographing them in a heap, on the bed, but this one was really the first intentional one. Are they looking at me because they like me and trust me, or because they’ve already conditioned to look at me when I have the thing in front of my face and call to them? However it happened, you see the echoes of this moment still today.

 


Photos From the Archives and Vintage Photos

Photos pulled “From the Archives” were taken by one or another digital camera of mine between 2002 and, well, yesterday, but usually they are older than that, and I had never had the chance to feature them. Vintage Photos are from my film archives back to 1983 when I purchased my Pentax K-1000 camera. They’re a fun way to “introduce” other members of my feline family who came and went before I began blogging, and to illustrate my feline family in general from days gone by.


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“Mewsette in Sun”, pastel on Fabriano Tiziani paper, 7″ x 9″ © B.E. Kazmarski

Mewsette lets the warm sun wash her back while she sits and simply looks lovely. Click here to read more and purchase.



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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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