Okay, now commence the ushy-gushy-ness:
These were taken one lazy weekend morning while Naski was cuddling with(and being forcibly cuddled by) Nick.
Up in the bedroom window, Naski was hunting for birdies (my presence in the room warranted a brief turn-check-"oh-it's-just-mom-nevermind", hence the dreamy far-off look)
Heading outside with Natasha for some late afternoon / early evening sun, she settled down next to me and let me snap away before giving me the "enough" look. I was, like, ruining her peaceful Naski-free time. Gosh. ("I'm bored! Meeee tooo!")
Oh. Yup. That's the look. Sorry, Tasha girl!
We tried, shortly after we brought Naski home, to introduce him to the back porch. The process went something like this. Open door. Encourage Naski to come out with us. Praise him when he steps over the threshold (he was a bit timid, we thought due to being a rescue). Turn around to see which plant Natasha was sniffing. Turn back and see Naski up on the balcony railing. Quickly retrieve said cat and return him to the indoors, where he has stayed since. Consequently, he is relegated to sitting at the screen door in the most lonely and tragic looking way, seething and (I'm sure) fueling his desire to overthrow the queen. It's heartbreaking until I remember the sight of him on that balcony rail, looking far too interested in how one would go about getting down to the asphault below.
Don't worry, he gets his revenge on us. Naski has taken to sitting atop a rolled-up carpet that we let them use as a scratching / climbing post. Some time ago, he started "tagging" Nick whenever he walked by "sentinel" Naski. Nick described it to me several times but I just couldn't picture what he meant ... so I pulled out the camera.
Ski, on his post:
Nick walks by and gets tagged:
Nick turns to me to say "See? Like this!" and laughs at how Naski is still holding on:
Naski and Nick get into a tug-of-war for Nick's shirt. Each boy is bracing himself against the doorjam!
Curious to see if he would recreate the game of tag with me, I first taunted him by peeking around the corner:
After a couple of seconds, Naski reached out to touch my face:
And after taunting him a second time (Monty Python reference intended), he decided to take a swipe at my face as soon as I poked my head around the corner (claws extended!):
Despite trying to "tag" my face, I couldn't get Naski interested in tagging my back, so Nick took a turn playing peekaboo with him.
The only version of peekaboo I can get Natasha to play these days in me peeking into her hiding places and saying "BOO!" This is her favorite place, behind the couch on a bed we keep back there for her.
I realize that our pictures of the cats together are few and far between ... let's just say that Natasha and Naski are truly living out the human standard for older and younger siblings. Now that Naski is much larger than Tasha, the older-cat-dominance that we have lived with for the last 6 months is less clear and he is really vying for power, which makes Natasha about as happy as you might expect.
The reason I got so snap-happy with the cats lately is because I picked up a new lens, the Canon 50mm f/1.8. It's a great little lens, very light on my camera, and the f/1.8 makes for reasonable shutter speeds in midlevel light (much faster than my Tamron 28-75 f/2.8, which is already a pretty fast lens). It enables me to avoid using the flash, which I think is just so harsh and takes away all of the natural shadows and contours that make for realistic-looking portrait pictures. At $85, it's absolutely the best deal in Canon lenses and is so loved by the pros that it has many endearing nicknames: Plastic Fantastic, Nifty 50, etc. I have been debating for a while now about whether to get this lens or spend about 3.5x more for the 50mm f/1.4. I'm glad I got this lens, but some experience photographic a very active 7-month-old (my nephew Josh, who was here this past weekend - pictures and a post to come!) made me wonder if the 1.4 wouldn't be worth the cost for photographing kids. The 0.4-stop advantage would allow for a fast enough shutter speed to get slightly crisper pics (I weeded through the hundreds I took and chose the cleanest). Thankfully, used lenses hold their value very well, so I always have the possibility to sell my 1.8 and upgrade without eating the investment I've already made. Right now, I'm very happy with the 1.8 for most of my uses. 'Til I live closer to my nephews (and soon-to-be-niece!!), anyway!
Oh, one more thing. KITTIIIIIEEEEEEEEEES! AHHHHHHHHH!
1 comments:
AAAAUUUUGGGGHHHHHH!!! KITTIES! :)
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