Photo Play #9: What the Cat Sees

The photography lessons have been a lot of fun. I don't have a schedule for when I work on a lesson, pretty much when I have the time and inclination.  In mid March, I finally finished the last of the lessons on learning to expand your perspectives. 

All the photos in this post were taken with a Canon 70D equipped with a Tamron 18-400 mm telephoto lens. The photos have not been edited other than to reduce the file size for posting.  

The last assignment on photographing the familiar was to photograph your house from the perspective of your pet. We don't have full time live in pets as I'm allergic to animal dander. But Grad Girl's kitty, Queenie, came to stay with us over Christmas.  So I wandered the house taking photos from the places she hung out when she was here. 

Queenie's most favorite vantage point in the house was at the top of the stairs. If Grad Girl was out of the house, that's where she'd watch the front door patiently waiting for her person to come home. I'm not really a fan of this photo, but it does what it's meant to, shows her view from her most frequent napping point.

  

The view of the front door is to Queenie's left, her view to the right is My Guy's music room. Other than to vacuum, I don't do much in this room. I have to admit from this perspective, it looks much cleaner and less cluttered than it is from normal perspective.  It's not a great photograph, the window are overexposed.  Even so, I do like how the light diffuses through the rest of the room, with the focal point being just behind the music stand.    

  

When she's home, Grad Girl pretty much hangs out on the couch, napping more often than not.  If she was there, that's where Queenie would be.  The couch is also where My Guy will play his mandolins in the morning, especially when Grad Girl is home as her bedroom is across the hall from his music room. So that's his music spread across the coffee table. This isn't a great photo either, but some things in the bookcase caught my eye and lead to whole other photo session later on.  

That's it for the photos from the cat's viewpoint that I'm willing to share.  I have a few others, but to say they were uninspiring is an understatement.  

Later in the same week we headed to Texas to hang out with Grad Girl for a few days during spring break.  We stopped in Waco, TX and took a long walk in Cameron Park along the Brazos River since we couldn't check in till late afternoon. Grad Girl had a meeting with her advisor that afternoon, so couldn't take off anyway.  

 

The Waco Zoo is part of Cameron Park.  All along the pathways there are statues of various animals.  We drove by this one on our way to park.  What drew me back to this statue originally is that it's funny.  The wide angle view of the statue shows an elephant sitting on a park bench with a parrot on his other tusk. What surprised me when I reviewed my pictures later was the intensity of this close up photo.  The sculptor really created an aura of intensity in the elephant's eyes. From this perspective you'd never guess that the overall statue is one that conveys humor.   

I really like the silhouette of this photo. It's a great photo for Halloween.  It was an unexpected outcome of shooting at a low ISO. We didn't pick the best week for our trip. It was cold, overcast and often rainy the week we were in Texas.  But the overcast sky is what makes this photo work, a blue sky would have made this just another picture of a crow.  So a good reminder that you can often get more interesting images when the weather isn't cooperative.  

This is my favorite photo of this set.  I really like butterflies.  The overcast sky does make it easier to get a good shot of the yellow spots on this Black Swallowtail getting it's lunch from the pink sweet peas. I have a dozen shots of this butterfly, this is really the only one that turned well.  A reminder that sometimes you have to shoot a lot to get one good shot, especially of a quick moving subject.   

What's my take home from this set of photos?

1.  Moving to a different level can really change what you see and focus on. 

2. My house isn't very photogenic. 

3. Photographing under an overcast sky produces different opportunities for good photos, very different than you would get on a sunny day.