Here's our cat...I shot the other day...PICT1388

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PICT1385

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You can use rails for peeking. And, if you are small enough, a porch rail is the perfect place to sit. Of course, some people are surprise to find that cats sit on rails.

Smokey and D.C. make great babysitters.

The kids are full of it.

Amanda in the flower garden, thinking.

Painted Lady on a blue flag.

I have a few other versions of Amanda in the flower garden in my images, tried to choose the best one to post. Happy Labor Day to all!

Well, there comes a time in every photographer's life when the must confess to taking pictures (likely far too many) of their pets.

Today, I'm coming clean and gonna show y'all our two cats: Abby and Mika.  As you can tell, they're all about the eyes!

Our cats are dark brown and anyone's who's tried to photograph a dark brown or black cat on camera knows that it is very tough to get right.  So, despite thousands of efforts, there are only a few good pictures.  

Abby and Mika are burmese and can be very fierce ...  ummm  ...I mean fierce! ... fierce!!. (That's better). Most of the time, however, they kinda just hang about dreaming of mice and sunshine.

Well, I'm having serious withdrawl ever since my digital died and both of my 35mm cameras are in for a good cleaning before we head to Niagara Falls. But I was doing more cataloging and organizing and realized I have a lot of cat pictures from over the years, so here are a few.

I got my first cat when I was 6 and his name is Scooter. He's 15 now and lays around a lot more than he used to, but hes still very healthy. He's and indoor/outdoor cat and spends most of his days lying in the chairs on the deck.

At school, I have a cat named Lance. This is him helping me pack my books.

Whem my mom remarried, my step dad brought his cat Zeke. In the winter he likes to sleep under the covers with his head on a pillow.

In January of 2001, my brother got his cat Midnight. He's still a kitten at heart, but weights 20 lbs!

This last picture is of the Tower on campus at graduation. I thought the top looked kind of like a bull, with the fireworks as the horns and the clock as the nose...or maybe not (hehe).

NOTE: Sorry about the time stamp on some of these. I know its distracting and I don't like it either, but I didn't know it was on at the time...oops!  

Some pics from my home town, Oregon and the Napa Valley. (And one of our girl too.... )

May I help you?
Incoming
The end of fall
Asphault under the bridge
Corny sunset picture
Crossing the Columbia
Keep it down guys
Grassy sky

Just wanted to share a few pictures of my kittens.sweet baby tiger Their nine weeks old and becoming little rascals.

Fun with my new CrossHatch Star filter:
Working on the truck.

Action:
Don't let good thing go to waste.

For Cherish:
Truth about Pink

here are some pictures that i have taken in the past that i really have liked such as two of my kittens sleeping DESCRIPTION_HERE  to my other cat playing in my rose garden DESCRIPTION_HERE along with a withered rose covered in an early snow DESCRIPTION_HERE and my favorite picture of a rain streaked window of outside DESCRIPTION_HERE

His name is Odin. He is truly my God of War... against mice!!! He used to live up the block, but decided he didn't like it there, so he adopted us. The other family understood....even though they don't speak English....oh well... people never own cat's...they own people. We love him!!!! And he's my hero!!!

Odin
Odin 1
Odin 2
Left eye
Right eye
Meow....OK...OK...I was scruffing him...  ;>

I am used to photographing only people and animals I know well.  But my husband's coworker wanted pictures of her cats, as well as a handdrawn portrait.  So off we went, to capture these "strangers" on film (or in this case, on flash card)...
Beretta was the easiest, as he is an endlessly happy cat.   Raven was tough, as with her dense black markings, achieving contrast proved nearly impossible.   "Jasmine Angel" was tough, not because of technicalities, but because she really did not like me.  Not even a little bit... Finally, my favorite shot of the evening was of Phantom Menace ... a classic, well used kitty shot, but my favorite all the same.

In some of these shots, i've obviously done a bit of "playing around" with color/contrast/colorizing and black and white in the same shots... feed back on that would be great, as well as any things you see that i could have done better...

Hey Folks. I know I haven't posted much latey....but tomorrow I'm flying to England for the week, so hopefully I'll snap out of my photography block while I'm there. :)
Loki Stares

I've been laid low with the crud so it was indoors shooting for me today.  Anna's big sister Kirstin is studying abroad in Germany and asked for some new pictures of Anna.  Here are some portraits of Anna that I shot today plus one imposter.

Anna 1
Anna 2
Anna 3

And here is the imposter.

By the way, if you've ever wondered why the color on the pictures you upload isn't what you think it should be read my question entitled, "Why are colors shifting in Photographica," in the Q&A section.  I learned a lot today about color profiles.

I'm not sure how many of you are Mac users, but there's been a request to provide some information on how to properly resize photos for optimum display on Photographica.  I volunteered to tackle this assignment on the Mac side.  For now I'm just going to deal with the resizing issue.  Perhaps someone else will take on the file format topic.

If you need help on doing this and you're using a Mac, I figure you're not into Photoshop in a big way, so I'm going to tell you how to do it in iPhoto.  I've used screen captures to show you how to do this.

First you want to select photo(s) that you want to export and then choose the Export command from the Share menu.  A dialog box pops up. Make sure that the File Export button is selected at the top.  Select "JPG" from the Format dropdown menu.  Click the radio button that says "Scale images no larger than:" and then set the width at something like 800 or 900 pixels.  The height will scale automatically.  Hit the Export button.  Next you'll see the Save As window. All you need to do there is name the file and choose where you want it saved.  After that you can upload the image to Photographica in whatever method you use (Web or FTP).  One thing to be sure of is to select the option that says Do not resize these images automatically. Otherwise your picture may come out fuzzy once uploaded.

So here is the resulting resized photo.

I will say one thing about jpeg files.  To get their smaller size, a lossy compression formula is used, which means that information is thrown away.  Everytime you edit and save a jpeg file information is tossed.  If you do it too many times you wind up with weird jpeg artifacts, which look like splotches of color.  The trick is to always make a copy of the original if you're going to edit a file, jpeg or not.  Then you've always got the original to go back to.  Another trick is that if you've done a lot of editing on a jpeg file, save it as a TIFF file, which does not use lossy compression.

Working 8-5 has its drawbacks this time of year, very little sun!  To play with my new camera I have to use my best subject, Tux, who looks thrilled!  One thing he is good for, a great game of   fetch. I guess he knows we really wanted a dog.  Of course, like any kitty, he loves to get into things.  These guys are not his friends anymore!  Toys are great, but he also gets frisky with the camera.  After a while he does chill and  tire out.

Have to end with a good close up!

He's our special boy!

First of all, I apologize for posting twice yesterday. Didn't read the rules... bad me!
So let me bribe you for forgiveness with this cute picture of tiger

Lying in waitThis was the neighborhood cat on base at Menwith Hill in England that my two daughters just loved.  One of the first cats that ever let them approach.  

I went home to Arkansas this weekend.  All the farm equipment was sitting out in the field behind my Dad's house.  As I walked around to take pictures, I had a tour guide.  "Big Kitty" (nicknamed Snots) made sure I avoided such landmines as dog-poo and she made sure I was safe, by frequently stopping mid-step and tweaking her radar ears.

Big Kitty on the Combine
Big Kitty on the Farm
Big Kitty on Guard

Jingles the cat.

 Jenna
 Tigger