Micro Cute
Some pictures just punch right out at viewers, and working with children and animals is no show business hyperbole. Children and animals can be cute without super fancy framing and composition. Nature made them cute. All a photographer has to do is focus and click. But cropping and finishing for micro stock vending is what separates the wheat from the chaff.
The appeal of the snapshot above doesn’t need explaining. The profile of the young lady and the minute expression of the face-dotted kitten sort of do all the work. The physical intertwining make this shot about so much more than just a kitten fair. The vulnerability of the neck area and the kitten settling there shows a two-way relationship of trust and interconnection.
The combination of human and animal spirit has been a topic of more than this photographer’s work. The animal kingdom in large part was made to exist in the wild, but here the feline dependence on the owner for everyday love, sustenance, and caring is evident. Kittens are just about synonymous with the word “cute”. The emotion coming out of the photo does a lot to emphasize the power of photography.
Keywords would be emotion, pets, love, caring, kitten, touch, feline, and spot. This would be a great shot for a pet adoption site or a kitten site. Pet stores sell many cats on the back of pictures like this. But this picture could also emphasize the healing power of a companion animal for a senior or homebound adult or child. Pets have magical healing powers.
The environment for this photograph presented opportunities and challenges. The room was vast and had natural light coming from various angles. But the light sources shining brightly overhead also generated beadiness in the eyes (and many of the cats were dozing). Background of uninteresting colors and unwanted people kept the lens and camera turning.
Using the museum and micro lens setting eliminated flash but I lost some shots with the micro lens assembly adjustment delay on my camera. This is where mastering the sports/speed setting helps. The kittens are great but I had to keep shooting anticipatory “sports” type image grabs. This was a frame shot, when I’ve gone through the video I’ll see the take from the rest of the shoot.
Kittens are convenient photo models, they don’t know enough about cameras to flinch, and the inquisitive gaze was just what the micro stock doctor ordered. I used some video on the older cats for frame capture later, they were wary of my small photographic device. I changed the lens setting and scene to various options but always had some shadow or blurriness going on.
Good thing this model had a natural extra helping of curiosity!
