For months, I have pursued Abby, looking to capture a portrait worthy of her beauty. Time has come to go with what I have. She is too wily a rascal for my amateur photographic skills.
The Featured Image starts where sightings began, on Jan. 23, 2018, in a yard on Adams Ave. where she hangs out but doesn’t live. A resident confirmed her name. I captured the moment with iPhone X, using the second camera to 2X zoom. Vitals: f/2.4, ISO 16, 1/873 sec, 6mm; 12:47 p.m. PST.
I really shouuld spend more time looking for alley cats—those that wander along the parallel throughways behind most buildings in the neighborhood. Had I, Choontzy, who also goes by Chootzy, surely would have joined the series sooner than this breezy Monday.
He is the first invited cat, so to speak. Last week, on the NextDoor social network, someone posted inquiring about friendly Snowshoe Willow, whose December 2017 profile I linked to in the replies. Among the responses, Choontzy’s caretaker expressed appreciation for the series and desire for him to join it. So, of course, I went on the hunt for the elder tuxedo—eighteen years old, like Gracie and Precious.
For Caturday, we celebrate with the second Lucy to appear in the series ( although I later learned that the first, who lives on Georgia Street, is spelled with an “i”, not “y”). My wife and I met her near-namesake on Florida, between Meade and Mission, last night. The 9-year-old beauty has a stub tail and sweet demeanor. You can’t not like her.
Lucy adopted her eventual caretaker, when the woman worked for a consignment shop. The stray came around and grew friendlier until she was transplanted from North Park business to University Heights residence—where she stayed without fuss. Lucy sticks pretty close to home, which isn’t surprising for a matronly kitty who chose her owner.
The neighborhood’s boundaries are clearly defined, and the chosen kitties live within them. But for the fifth instance out of the 171 profiles posted since the series started in October 2016, we make an exception. Moophie (real name) joins outliers Buddies, Chill, Envy, and Sammy.
The handsome longhiair lives on the same street where my daughter moved two months ago. I frequently see Moophie saunter across the road near the end of the block; in Hillcrest, which is adjacent to University Heights and a mere 2.3 km (1.4 miles) walk from my apartment.
Three Man Chairs and reminder what the gals shop for while the dudes wait—shot with iPhone X, today, at Westfield UTC in La Jolla, Calif. Vitals, for the Featured Image: f/1.8, ISO 20, 1/800 sec, […]
I passed this unusual emergency vehicle while walking up Meade Ave. between Georgia and Florida streets in San Diego’s University Heights neighborhood on April 27, 2018. I captured the Featured Image at 5:01 p.m. PDT, […]
Nine. That’s the number of felines seen last night in the hour before sunset and not long later. Is it a Full Moon thing? There was one of two Maine Coons, which will join the series soon. Same is true of a Tuxedo, whom I may finally have gotten close enough for a usable portrait; I’ve been trying for weeks. Couple doors down there was a tabby behind a screened window. Both sightings were on Florida ,along with Wonder, who looked down from inside a residence rather than outside porch.
Over on Alabama, I passed by Burglar, Goldie, and Itchy Valentino—deciding to quietly walk by rather than to distract them. What a surprise! Tipsy crossed the road to greet me and sauntered back after being satisfied by her pats. That brings us yet to another Alabama cat—nineteenth from the street. The kitty earns nickname Dizzy for hanging out on a second floor balcony ledge.
To renew, or not to renew, that is the question: Whether ’tis nobler in the budget to suffer the slings and arrows of haughty annual fees, or to take leave of a parade of animals—and by opposing end membership? Surely Shakespeare wouldn’t approve, but since he can’t come crying copyright infringement, well…
Our annual San Diego Zoo passes expire on April 30, and “Another year?” is question of the weekend. My wife and I trucked over to the animal refuge this morning and got great value from the hour spent walking about and looking at the beasties. But is that experience enough to warrant another year?
Sunset was 7:25 p.m. PDT on April 24, 2018. Nearly 20 minutes later, what looked like a bushy-tailed black and white shorthair trotted down Florida between Meade and Monroe before scooting up some stairs to a row of apartments/condos. Two months earlier, I had seen the kitty nicknamed Mew in the same vicinity. Second-sighting? I’ll never know, because another beauty perched above and stayed steady for several portraits.
Because of fast-falling dusk, I carried Leica Q, which packs a magnificently detail-capturing, fast lens. I set aperture wide-open and shutter speedy, letting the camera auto-crank ISO for shooting along the dimly-lit street. Vitals for the Featured Image: f/1.7, ISO 16000, 1/250 sec, 28mm, 7:44 p.m. The companion, taken one minute earlier, is same except for ISO 2000. I manually focused both.
Please meet the eighteenth Alabama Street cat to appear in the series. How can there possibly be so many? The skittish shorthair lives on the same block as Holiday, Laramie, Lupe, Precious, and Smokey. Long-time fixture Monkey recently passed away.
I know the calico’s name, but didn’t check the spelling with her owner. Fifty-fifty chance, I pick Harley over Harlie. (Editor’s Note, April 11, 2021: I happened to hear the lady calling “Harley”, interspersed with “Harlequin”. Now we know which spelling is correct.)
My preferred, and favorite, photo-sharing site is SmugMug. The family-owned operation is long profitable by defying the Internet’s predominant axiom: Free. SmugMug relies on a solely subscription model, where customers pay, and, as such, doesn’t collect user information for profit nor are there annoying advertisements.
But for the longest time, I haven’t used SmugMug—for what may seem like the strangest of reasons: My art isn’t good enough. The service has matured into a collective of professional photographers, and I don’t feel comfortable keeping my images among theirs (although many of mine remain from the past). I grudgingly use Flickr instead. Instagram isn’t an option, for the same reasons I rebuke parent company, and data-collection whore, Facebook.
My wife and I took a little drive to the ocean—our small way to celebrate Earth Day. The unremarkable Featured Image is simple demonstration of how much detail a full-frame sensor can capture; I used […]