Vintage Photo: What? 1994

February 9, 2020 Bernadette

torbie cat on bed — Fawn wants me to go away.

Some kitties haven’t been as welcoming of my photography attention as others. Actually, Fawn loved to have her photo taken, but at this moment she was just settling into a nice afternoon nap on the bed and really just wanted to focus on that. She was a sassy girl, and I loved her for it. This time she gave me a good long look, then just closed her eyes. As usual, even on film, I took more than one photo to make sure I captured the scene just in case I might want to paint it someday, but Fawn with her eyes closed wasn’t as interesting as Fawn with her eyes open.

I’m not sure when in 1994 I took this, but there was snow outside, and looking at some photos on the same roll it seems to be January or February. It’s on the same roll as Dinnertime for Nine, below, just before that.

Other Vintage Photos from Previous Years

Dinnertime for Nine, 1994

My household of nine cats enjoying dinner.

My entire household of nine resident cats—and one is just out of range of this photo but you’ll see her below—enjoying dinner on the kitchen floor in February 1994.

From the top right, the tabby cat with white paws is Stanley, 12.

To the left of him the gray tabby is Moses, 7.

Directly below Moses the long-haired tabby and white is Sophie, 4.

To the right of Sophie the orange and white cat is Allegro, 8.

To the left of Sophie the long-haired white cat is Sally, 11.

Directly below Sally the black cat is Kublai, 13.

To the left of Kublai’s tail the tortie is Cookie, 2 (2!).

To the right of Kublai’s tail the torbie is Fawn, 6.

In the photo below, the dilute tortie at the very top of the photo, on top of the half-wall, is Nikka, 6. Fawn and Nikka were sisters, but Nikka had been adopted and had just come back to my household the previous year.

nine cats eating dinner — The group with Nikka, up on the divider.

We all photograph our cats while they’re eating don’t we? I have always loved to feed my cats, plan their meals, hand out their food and watch them eat, it makes me happy that they are happy. I wanted to record that moment and that memory. They chose their spots and stood waiting for me to put the dish down, just as they do today. My kitchen had once been two small rooms, a kitchen and dining room. When I moved in here in 1990 someone had removed the upper part of the walls leaving half walls on either side of what had been the doorway. Nine cats were just too crowded in that small space and I could not convince anyone to move on the other side of the wall.

This group of nine cats, my first rescues, were my treasures. They were who I came home to after some work days at my day job that were 16 to 18 hours long, and kept me going through my part-time weekend jobs at the same time. We rarely had a chance to sleep in until I started seriously freelancing, and then they were there to stay up all night with me while I got design jobs done and worked on paintings—paintings of them, at this point in time, and just beginning to seriously photograph them and look around for art exhibits. We fostered plenty of homeless adult cats and socialized a lot of kittens too.

Below, Sally wonders what the heck I’m doing creeping around with that big black thing. Some things never change.

cats eating food — Sally looks at me as I’m creeping around with my camera.

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See other Vintage Photos of my household of cats from days gone by, and taken on film with my Pentax K-1000.

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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pastel portrait of cat under bed — “Waiting for Mom”, pastel, 16″ x 23″, 1988 © Bernadette E. Kazmarski

I painted this in 1989, just about three years after I began seriously working my way through learning to draw simply by drawing all the time, after work at night and on the weekend—and of course, I was painting my cats. I was probably working on this when I took this photo. 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.