Sweet Greens

Anyone who knows me well knows I love animals. I love all animals and have been a vegetarian for over 10 years because of this love; however, specifically, I love cats. I have nine of them in my own home and they are all my little fur babies.

I do both macro and regular photography of my cats. I like both and feel that they both lend a different take on the cats’ personalities and physical characteristics. Regular pictures are definitely easier to take, as you can take them from a distance without the cat even really knowing you are doing so. The hard part and most challenging for me is macro photography. You have to almost touch the subject to get a really good macro picture, and touching a cat means getting its attention (not always what you want!).

I recommend taking your macro photos when the cats are sleeping or very calm. I also recommend thinking outside of the proverbial box, if you will. Don’t focus on their faces or bodies or whole selves alone. Focus on one eye, a whisker, a toe pad, etc. Really get in there and LOOK at the cat in all its wonderful beauty. Their hair is often multi-colored from skin to tip, their noses contain a print just as individual as our fingerprints, and their eyes are wonderfully bulbous and come in shades humans only wish they had.

All in all, pet photography is rewarding (I have won several small photo contests with some of mine) and fun. While it has its own obstacles, and those obstacles differ slightly among animals, it is so worth it in the end for an animal lover like me. On a bit of a side note, I know that this post deals solely with cats, as I have no dogs or other pets (besides a Flame-bellied newt who doesn’t like being touched)! However, these same tips and thoughts can be applied to almost any type of pet, and I hope you will try them with your pets!

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Last August I hurt my knee. I was pretty much trapped inside the house on solid ground for 6 months. I could barely get around, taking the steps or visiting my yard were off limits. I was dying creatively. I couldn’t get out to my gardens to take pictures and I missed it desperately. Out of this desperation, came a new obsession of mine that I call Found Art.

I was sitting one day and looking at all the knick-knacks around my home and noticing their texture and color when it hit me. Macro photos of these items could be really cool. Lesson: art can be found anywhere if you are open to it.

I started with my collection of geodes. I would hobble around my house on my bum knee and put the geodes in different settings and light and snap photos. I was amazed by some of the shots I got. I then moved on to glass vases and globes, picture frames, house plants, and even my nine house cats! Blankets, frost/condensation on the windows, rocks, insulators, etc. all became my subjects and it was fun!

I turned a boring, drab situation into a new hobby! Let’s find art everywhere in my house! Common objects suddenly took on new meaning and wonder through my camera’s lens and I was ecstatic to be “working” again. It just went to show me that my photography really had no bounds and that if you find it beautiful or thoughtful it can be art, no matter the subject.

After my knee healed to its current state, I started looking all around me outside too. I found garden art and telephone poles, building façades and sewer grates all held artistic merit. Now, when I am out taking photos, I don’t miss the forest for the trees, to use an old cliché. I try to take EVERYTHING in. Buildings and nature, man-made and earth. It’s really broadened my range and opened my eyes! Art truly is everywhere!

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People often ask me “how did you get that angle?” or “where were you standing to get this picture?” The answer is really pretty simple. I try to think like and be like a bug!

When I am in my yard or at a park or wherever I am taking my photographs, I almost always use my macro setting and get down and dirty with the camera. What is down and dirty? How does this relate to bugs? Easy! I will lay in the grass, squat down to the ground level, look up from the subject instead of down at the subject, etc. I imagine myself as the bug on the ground. What would that viewpoint be like? What would a bug see? How would what a bug sees be different than how we, as LARGE humans, see things? When you begin to think like a bug and be like a bug, you can get some really interesting photos!

One of my favorite ways to be a bug is to take photos from underneath my subject. I am always amazed by this viewpoint. You see sky and earth and mushroom gills and stems. You see all sorts of stuff you miss by just looking down on your subject. I absolutely love mushrooms and take lots of mushroom photos from this angle!

I also love to take pictures of bugs themselves using the macro setting. You not only get to see the bug up close and personal in a way you most likely never have, but you also get to see the plant they are perched on or munching on from their buggy viewpoint! I really have a new found appreciation for bugs because of this. They really are beautiful creatures and simply amazing to study!

A third way I use the bug viewpoint with my photography is to simply take straight photos of yard weeds using my macro setting. When you find a weed in your yard, really really look at it. There is probably a bloom on there somewhere. It can be as tiny as a pen tip, but it’s there! I will get my lens as close to that tiny flower as I can, use the macro setting, and click. I never know what I am going to get, as it’s hard for me to see the details of these tiny wonders with my own eyes. But when I upload the pictures to my computer, I am often amazed by the gorgeous results.

Nature never ceases to amaze and hypnotize me when I am in it. I find new things every outing. Stepping outside of yourself for a bit and playing pretend like we did as children goes a long way in nature, especially with macro photography.

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