I came across this one while trying to find some other frames for a particular post, and decided to feature it for giggles. I have a Personal/Miscellaneous folder that mostly holds photos of family and friends and so on – in other words, not stock images that are available for publication (which is why it doesn’t feature in the Ancient Lore lineup.) I don’t go into it often, but usually when I do I get at least a little reminiscing out of it.
This was from Florida, and taken with the infrared function of the Sony F-717 while just fiddling around one evening with the lights off. This is Meerkitten, one of the semi-feral shelter rescues that became mine for fourteen years, and one of the smarter cats I’ve known with a lot of personality to boot. She earned her name from her ability to stand effortlessly on her hind legs in order to see something better, and because “meer” was the noise she always made. Obviously I caught her here in mid-yawn.
I love the effect that the infra-red light had on the lens sitting beside her though, my old Vivitar 75-260mm for the Olympus cameras – at the time I was normally shooting with the Canon Elan IIe, my first ‘serious’ film camera, but I did a lot of experimental and B&W photography with the Olympus rig. The color difference you see on the lens came from the different materials: the rubber focus and zoom rings are dark, while the anodized aluminum lens barrel came out, for reasons unknown, much brighter, even though they were identical shades in visible light. In front of that sits a ribbed tube which had been an old metal broom handle before it was repurposed into a camera adapter for a telescope, glimpsed here (the yellow bit). You can’t make it out in the photo above, but it’s attached to a rear lens cap that allowed the Olympus camera to be used with the scope.
And if you look very closely, you can see the string of saliva that join her upper and lower canines on one side. Bet you really wanted that detail pointed out.