Category: Stealthy Pumas

Pictures of the neighborhood cats

More 200-500 experiments

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The sun came out this afternoon and the sky was almost blue. Quite an improvement from last week’s smoke and smog. I thought it might be a good time to actually take some shots of birds and lizards with light that worked.

the littler guy is about an inch long nose to vent … and the one on the stump might be a half inch longer.

Not too many examples, but here’s the young guy from the previous post, trying to lay claim to the stump again, and a younger challenger trying to own the steps to the front porch. Note, the little guy on the bricks is just as bombastic as the slightly larger one on the stump, he just does it to the hatchlings. I actually have some video of him showing off for one so small it probably hasn’t even molted yet. A 6 week old bossing around a 4 week old, bossing around a 2 week old. I guess this is the lizard version of shit flowing downhill.

Video later. For now some sample stills. One each, cropped to show how sharp I can get when the sun is shining, and one uncropped to show how much of the lizard actually fills the frame. Remember, the littler guy is about an inch long nose to vent — that brick is only 4 inches wide — and the one on the stump might be a half inch longer.

The one on the stump molted the day after I took the last pictures. So he’s out today in brand new skin and it looks to me like the color around his eye is getting more brilliant. The fact that you can see that with this lens kind of blows my mind. 500mm is quite the reach.

After more pics and videos of the baby dragons I waited a bit for the birds to come out. They like to feed on the berry bushes at the end of the yard nearest the street so I can find them there some evenings. I went out when I heard them chattering to get some shots.

At first I got one or two in the yard, hanging out on the wire above the berry bush and cactus along the fence. I was having issues exposing properly, getting the background more than the bird, but he flew off to argue with his finchy friends before I could switch to spot and try again. There were bluebirds and a goldfinch in the red berry bush so I thought to get into position to see them when all the birds in all the bushes flew away. Dammit!

I took a few pictures of birds on the wires, and even tried to get some in flight, but never got another shot of them in amongst the foliage with the nice green backdrop. Oh well. Here are some samples.

The reason they all bolted? Well, Creamsicle had to take a shit. He was walking up behind me and, though he’s a ridiculously lazy cat who doesn’t hunt much, the birds don’t know that. Lucy is the real hunter and, though I have never seen her take a bird, she has gotten mice, gophers, and more than a few lizard tails.

I think I might back up a bit here. Creamsicle is the orange and white cat that’s always in the yard. Unlike Lucy, who has the black cat habit of thinking I’m her very best friend, Creamsicle has never wanted anything to do with me. He used to see me and run away, in fact, but for the last six months I get his attention when he’s in the yard then just ignore him. Now he knows I’m not going to bother with him so he doesn’t run away. He doesn’t even look at me, in fact, just going about his business. And his business, in this case, is both metaphorical and, well, also metphorical, but in the more scatological sense.

I learned recently from the lady next door, who Lucy actually lives with as opposed to just inviting herself in like she does everywhere else, that Creamsicle is a stray. He just showed up one day so she gave him some food. He comes for a meal (or two) every day now. And generous meals they are, he has gotten rather rotund in the half dozen years I have known him. Creamsicle isn’t his real name, it’s just what I call him because there have been so many cats hanging out in the yard over the years my usual moniker for the cat that is usually hanging out in my yard, “Neighbor Kitty, ” wasn’t specific enough.

In the afternoons, however, Creamsicle “does his business” in the front yard. And by that, I mean he has decided there’s a specific spot in the yard to take a shit.

I kind of wonder how it is that it is so common an occurrence the last dozen years — that a cat has taken residence in my yard — that I need monikers for them. But this has been the case ever since the original Neighbor Kitty at my place in Oceanside. I’m pretty sure they’re trying to tell me something, but I intend to ignore the message for as long as possible.

Creamsicle spends time almost every day sleeping in the back yard. He has, at various times, found a nice place atop the shed, on a rickety wooden bench, or just on a bed he has stamped out of the grass and I can generally see him out the kitchen window when I’m getting a cup of coffee. This is the busy life of a stray cat. Get breakfast, find a nice place to sleep, rinse, repeat.

In the afternoons, however, Creamsicle “does his business” in the front yard. And by that, I mean he has decided there’s a specific spot in the yard to take a shit. Why that spot, and why here, I don’t know, but after I dug up some of the weeds to plant wildflower seeds this winter he chose one of the cleared areas as his new litter box and has been visiting it a couple times a day since.

This afternoon’s visit to the gentleman’s rest facilities completely disrupted the birdwatching session as he came sauntering past me. And sauntering is all he does any more. Maybe an amble, or a trudge now and again, but now that he isn’t afraid of me he doesn’t hurry at all. He won’t even look at me.

Oh well. Birds done, cat pics on deck. I almost think I need to make him scared of me again so he’ll look my way for better photos, but with this lens I decided to get in touch with my inner Marlin Perkins and take some photos like I was watching a lion stalking on the Serengeti.

The day ended with a sunset, for the first time in weeks. These are straight out of the camera, no crop. The view from the kitchen window compressed by the 500mm perspective.

Lucy is a dirty girl

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It has been mentioned that Lucy is surprisingly difficult to get a good photograph of because she’s a very uncooperative model. Not that she means to be difficult, she just has her own agenda, and it seldom aligns with posing for the camera. In fact, I’ve tried video in the past and she doesn’t like having the camera down at her level and will get annoyed and walk away if I persist. The last time I had the camera near her she just ran away, not wanting to be pursued.

The other issue is that she is friendly. Too friendly. This is the cat that spent three years trying to make friends with Nono, who hated her (and almost all other cats and people.) Lucy used to actually knock on the door to ask me to let her in. Literally, I’d be talking on the phone at work, hear a banging noise, step outside my room and find a black cat mewling and doing figure-8s on the porch asking to come inside.

I never purposely let her in, but she snuck in once when I had my arms full of groceries and decided she was allowed in forever more. For the next few years I had to tell her several times a week that she doesn’t live here. That’s just how a cat’s brain works.

When she comes over she will rub against my ankles a few times, graciously accept some pets, then go about her business of rolling in the dirt and weeds until she’s filthy.

So, when I see Lucy she comes running over for attention. It doesn’t take much, even seeing me looking in her direction will bring her over. So it is hard to get a candid shot of her just doing Lucy things. When she comes over she will rub against my ankles a few times, graciously accept some pets, then go about her business of rolling in the dirt and weeds until she’s filthy. Sometimes she’ll rub up against me after her roll in the dirt, as well, not aware that cats are supposed to be fastidious and aloof.

Today I was taking portraits of the Porch dragon, seated on her chair along the upper planter, when Lucy came by and I decided to try again. I had a strategy in mind, and put the camera on the porch then went out into the yard to greet her. I figured I’d get that out of the way, then she’d go about her business and I could follow with the camera. It almost worked. We had a nice little chat, did some petting, and then she started poking around the yard looking for a good place to sit. Perfect!

I went to the porch and retrieved the camera and, before I had turned around, she came running.

I couldn’t even get a good pic as she trots over. I use a manual focus 70-210 lens for the lizard photos, so I had to try and track focus and get some shots in before she got too close.

I think the issue was that I was at the porch. She rubbed up against me a good deal, then went up to the front door and mewled a few times. It has been five years since she first snuck in and, though I’ve never let her in since, maybe this time was different, right? Obviously it was worth asking, just in case.

Of course I didn’t let her in. I explained to her that this wasn’t her house and she returned to the yard and started rolling around.

When she doesn’t know I’m there she’ll lie in the grass, she’ll hunt gophers and mice, she’ll sit on the stump or the chair, or she’ll hassle Creamsicle until he gets annoyed enough to chase her. But when I’m there she rolls in the dirt. She’s the cat version of a black Lab, whatever that is.

After her dirt bath, she found a shady place to relax. Again, she’s a bit too comfortable with me and will close her eyes, doing the slow blink that means “you’re OK, I’m not scared of you” in cat. It’s all a strange conundrum. You’d think the friendliest cat in the neighborhood would be the easiest to get a good portrait of, but the skittish Creamsicle will always look at me when he knows I’m watching him. An all black cat without opened eyes is really hard to expose properly. Matrix metering usually does best, though sometimes you have to use spot, usually if you’re close in on her face and her eyes are open. Either way you end up having to nudge the exposure one way or the other most of the time.

At least if she’s sitting still I can try one of each setting to see what happens. So I took my marginal photographs of a filthy cat then left her to her business. I returned to the house to set up a time lapse for the sunset. I hope Lucy got a good nap in before she was called home for supper.

Older Photographs

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Since the only things to photograph here while under house arrest were what I could find in my yard, it was pretty much cats and lizards. So I decided to grab some older photographs for a little variety.

Many of these were taken with my old trusty D70. Extremely modest gear, compared to the current generation of digital cameras, but it’s what I had at the time. Like the old photojournalist’s credo “F8 and be there” it’s more important to take a picture than to take the most technically perfect picture ever.

Some were taken with my 7100, which was wonderful in its day, but on my trips to Taiwan and Italy I carried an 18-200 lens that I never bonded with. Just couldn’t make sharp images to save my life though it’s tack sharp with a 35mm 1.8 or even the 18-120 that camera wore as a walkin’ around lens after I sold the 18-200.

So, soon I’ll be adding some portfolios to prove that I don’t just take pictures of cats. And some pictures of cats.

Let’s begin with dogs. First, some photos of a young and handsome Shadow.

And Chopper and Cookie, plus bonus pics of a little smash faced yorkie who lived with a friend a decade ago.

There are occasionally photographs of actual people, too. Though that’s rare. Not much of a people person.

It’s always interesting to see what you get from a sunset. Or a blood moon eclipse. The eclipse was just the best I could do with the equipment I had, but something is better than nothing and I learned the difficulties of exposing for the surprisingly bright moon. F11 and the inverse of the ISO, a rule for the ages.

I took more than a few snapshots while on the road. I stumbled across some from the summer of 2007, where I started in Boston, DC, Chicago, London for a month, Belgium for a long weekend, Germany for a month, then home for a week before Mexico City… that was a busy year.

I have a lot of photographs from the era somewhere, but here’s a smattering. Some from Chicago, London, Munich, and the Mosel where it is always cloudy yet charmingly beautiful. Or maybe that was all the wine.

Then there were pictures of Doug’s little asshole dog. I hate that dog. Ugly as the day is long, but he makes up for it with an awful personality. The picture in the jeep is pure portrait art, though. I’m actually proud of that one.

Of course, there are about a billion photos of Nono. If I was taking a picture in the house, she’d find a way to get in it, so I often used her as a focal point anyway.

I recall once sitting in a coffee shop with a young girl I’d befriended a couple of years before at an open mic at a different coffee shop and meeting her there was pure happenstance. We had discussed photography in the past, and music, and cat memes, and whatever else it is you talk to 17 year old girls about… actually that’s pretty much all there was to talk about. So when she came over to say hello I showed her my brand new camera, which had arrived only an hour before. Her first comment was “I’ll be disappointed if the first thing you took a picture of was anything but your cat.”

I’d like to say I’d disappointed her, but the first few photos here were on the card when she pushed play. The rest are just random pics that were on this hard drive.