Vintage Photo: The Casual One-paw Dangle, 1999
Cookie is ready for her supurrvisory role, no doubt on a Saturday morning, in spring, probably April, 1999. We’ve had a long list of pawdanglers here, but Cookie specialized in the one-paw dangle, specifically the casual one-paw dangle. Doesn’t she look casual here? Kind of leaning on her right elbow while her left tortie leg is stretched as far toward the floor as it would go. A little head-tilt, and a meatloaf in the back. I’m probably in the middle of my Saturday morning baking or something.
Backlit photography was never easy in this house and I had apparently used the flash on my film camera to counteract the bright light coming in the back door. That served to light up Cookie’s lighter areas, but oversaturate her dark areas. This was the best I could do with the print to lighten it up, but there is Cookie’s half-n-half face, keeping a close eye on me. Actually both eyes, and still the casual one-paw dangle.
I took another photo from more of a distance and managed to get a nice silhouette with no detail. But I like Cookie’s silhouette, nice and rounded, and you can even still see in her shape the casual one-paw dangle. I don’t know that I ever distinguished that in her until other paw danglers moved in, like Bella and Mariposa, but now I know it’s classic Cookie.
That stool has been in that corner of the kitchen, or at that end of the sink, since the day I moved in here. It’s always been the feline lookout stool, where they’d sit and watch me at the sink or even the stove. The stool was handmade by a friend who learned a number of traditional crafts, and for cripe sake he cut the oak and milled it into the legs and crossbars, and even the weaving material is made of oak sapling splits. It’s lasted all these years without a sign of aging, even for all the happy scratching on it, all the sitting and having it hang out in the kitchen.
This weekend I moved it to the basement so I could sit down while I work at my workbench, just to take some pressure off my back, literally. I didn’t get a chance to sit on it, though. I got myself all set up and went to sit on it, but Mimi had beat me to it. Later I looked down to see Mr. Sunshine there. The struggle is real.
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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My little sunflower worships the morning sun at that same door. Read more and purchase.
Copyright
All images and text used on this site are copyrighted to Bernadette E. Kazmarski unless otherwise noted and may not be used without my written permission, although links to your site are more than welcome and are shared. Please ask if you are interested in using and image or story in a print or internet publication. If you are interested in purchasing a print of an image or a product including it, check my animal and nature website Portraits of Animals 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.
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