Abyssinian Cat Picture

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This page is about the making of an Abyssinian cat picture. When playing the video please click on the HD button to get the best quality (it shows when the video is started). And the picture was made by the best cat photographer, Helmi Flick. The Abyssinian kittens in this video were walked into the makeshift studio at the Apr 25-26, 2009 Oklahoma City OK – TICA Thunderkatz cat show, in a large transporter type cage by the cat breeder Pat Harbert. As I was at a loose end at the time, watching Helmi and Ken photographing cats and videoing the sessions, I was placed in charge of these adorarable kittens. As I watched over them it occured to me that they should make a decent video so I pulled out the Flip HD camcorder. OK, I got in too close as the kittens are a little soft (out of focus) but I think it still works as a video because the subject matter is so nice.  And at the end of the video you get to see the Helmi Flick pictures. 

One of these kittens caught my eye. He (or she, but I think it was a he) was what seemed to be an outsider. He sat to one side and fell asleep. He fell into a very short but very deep sleep. You can see him breathing very deeply. Then he woke up and joined the others. This was about 30 mins before the actual photo session with Helmi Flick. During this show the famous Oklahoma wind blew most of the time. You could hear it blowing throught a tower near the show hall. It was very strong, very persistent and warm. For a European it was a strange kind of wind.

These kittens were a mighty handful when in the maksehift (but extremely professional) photographic studio. How do you create a photograph of a large group of kittens on a relatively narrow platform - with difficulty?! Ken is the wrangler and as usual he did a great job. One thing that he knows to do is to reduce the number of subjects if one or perhaps two are more interested in playing and exploring rather than posing for the camera (an understandable thing). So, a number of the kittens were taken off and the ones that remained performed nicely. You'll see some of the results in the video. They created a really nice Abyssinian cat picture.