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.
