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akhtarkhan
February 07, 2014
Both model and the Cat's eyes pin sharp focus and good eye contact, nice detail. Beautiful capture....congrats on the feature.
BowmanLifeStudios
February 07, 2014
This is a great portrait, the lighting in beautiful the matching expressions are priceless, Really Well Done!
chrissy2rn
February 07, 2014
Beautiful capture of this Mackerel Tabby and his/her bewitched owner. :)
pamelaford
April 04, 2014
I absolutely love this photo. I love cats and my yellow tabby was killed by a pit bull. His name was Mr. Sara.
robinhart-jones
April 12, 2014
There is a cat that knows how to 'Work the camera' :D Great portrair.
lynnefindlay
March 05, 2015
Not sure about the balance but the tail does give me a huge smile. Love everything else - tonings and expressions are priceless.
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Behind The Lens
Location
In my home studio ( a converted formal dining room)Time
I think it was around dinner time.Lighting
It is a simple clam shell set up. I had my Elinchrom strobe in a beauty dish above me and to the front and a reflector held on a stand right below camera under my chin.Equipment
Camera: Nikon D700 Lens: Nikon 85 1.4 SS: 1/250th Aperture: f13 ISO 200 Light: Elinchrom BXRI, beauty dished, and a reflector on a lightstand. Camera was on a tripod and self timered for multiple intervals. I prefocused on one of my kids and locked the focus in before the shoot.Inspiration
I had actually wanted to take a variation of this shot with my daughter for a long time because her hair color is exactly the same coppery ginger as the cat's fur. She was too young at the time to cooperate for long enough to get the shot. I was dying my hair from red to blond and this was an intermediate color in that process. I noticed one day that my hair happened to match the cats as well and so figured I'd try this shot on myself. To me this shot was all about the color.Editing
I did. I retouched my skin and all the stray hairs and then color corrected everything. The background yellow was shifted a bit more to better match the hair and fur.In my camera bag
Nikon D700, and nikon lenses 14-24, 35, 60 macro, 85. I also have an Olympus OMD and a few m4/3 lenses I like to play with.Feedback
If you're going to work with a cat you'll need the patience of a saint, even if you have an amazingly good tempered and patient one like this. Give yourself time to take as many frames as you need to since in a self portrait you can see if you have your angles and expression right. Use something or someone to prefocus on and then lock that in, along with your other settings (manual mode is a must for this imo, since you aren't at the camera to adjust--and you shouldn't have to in a studio anyway). Play. I had no idea if this shot would work. It looked good when I pictured the concept in my head but you never know till you've tried so don't be scared to experiment photographically.