I adopted Cherry two years ago from the shelter, and she was 11 at the time, with PTSD, anxiety and severe depression. Together we worked on our relationship and travelled down the road to recovery together. Now she is even willing to sit for a total of five seconds for a portrait.
For those of you active on social media, you might have come across this portrait of Cherry last night or this morning. While writing a blog entry the other evening, she came up to me, and sat right under the very lamp that I had used for the Grace Kelly shoot and glared holes into my soul with her amber eyes.
OK, I speak cat, and know when to take a hint from Cherry. She was actually asking for treats, and got a camera shoved in her face instead, but she gave me all of five seconds to do my job and I wasn’t about to waste the moment. She is otherwise a very reluctant and impossible model to work with, and every time I try to photograph her I can’t help but miss Champagne, who was an old pro at posing.
After careful consideration of the shots I managed to get, I smiled and decided to put them through the same vigorous processing as a human portrait. After all, a portrait is a portrait regardless of whether the model has two, four, six or eight legs! And since I had indeed set out to practice on single slight portraiture, who was I to complain? When I posted the final version on social media last night, I thought to myself it was probably going to be shot down and dismissed for all sorts of reasons. Lo and behold, the image has been named the photo of the day on one group, nominated twice as an inspiration photo, and praised by all and sundry around the globe, including naming her the new Grumpy Cat!
I think the reaction is mostly to the caption that went along with it, the back story that added the all-important dimension, or the fact that cats do indeed rule social media, but either way, I am absolutely thrilled that my grumpy rescue chatterbox has the spotlight on her, even if just for a day!
