Tag: Boo

The Angel & The Stained Glass

Our black-and-white cat Boo gazes out the window

I loved Boo’s angelic look as he watched birds outside our picture window, with stained glass windows hanging behind him. I believe the windows may be homemade, they were there when we bought the house, I like the flair they add to the room.

Beat the Heat (and Smoke)

Our dog Ellie and our cat Boo rest in their beds

An unusually hot and dry summer in the Pacific Northwest has led to many troublesome wildfires, and the winds shifted this weekend bringing smoke from fires far to the east into Portland. We kept the windows closed to minimize the smoke coming into the house, and spent the entire weekend in our bedroom with the portable air conditioner keeping things nice and cool.

I took a quick picture of Ellie in her dog bed and Boo behind her in the cat bed, Sam was with my wife on the bed and Trixie I think was playing elsewhere in the house. We keep the bedroom door mostly closed to keep the cool air in, but open enough that the cats can come and go as they please. When Ellie walks in she swings the door wide open with a dramatic swoop of her head. It makes me laugh every time, our sweet-natured goofball making such a grand entrance.

Decision Time

Our cat Boo stretches out on top of the cat tree

Back in June I pre-ordered Sony’s just announced A7R II mirrorless camera, guessing that its ground-breaking features might otherwise make it hard to come by in the early days, but also knowing that I had plenty of time to cancel before it shipped in August. I got an email from Amazon that the camera is going to ship in the middle of the week, the first date they are available in the US, so it’s time to decide if I should cancel or not.

I expected there would be plenty of reviews by now to help me make up my mind (the camera is already shipping in the UK for crying out loud) but the non-disclosure agreements must not be up until later in the week because there has been little information available since the initial announcement. I think Sony is even holding a press event here in Portland on Wednesday but reclusive cat bloggers must not have been high on their invite list.

I’ll sleep on it but I’m leaning towards canceling the order given the expense (I’d switch all of my non-wildlife shooting to Sony’s system). But I’ve been flip-flopping all over the place the past week as while there is much I like about my little Canon M, there is much I don’t, and the Sony solves some of my biggest complaints with the M.

For example, I grabbed the M this afternoon when I saw Boo stretched out and about to fall asleep on top of the cat tree, as it nicely contrasted how differently he sleeps than tidy little Scout who preceded him, but I had to stand scrunched in the corner of the room with the camera near my heart, snapping pictures before he changed his pose. The camera’s buffer fills quickly so I couldn’t take a shot when he yawned, not that the slow autofocus could have tracked him, but without image stabilization even this static shot yielded a bunch of unsharp pictures and thankfully one sharp one.

The Sony has built-in image stabilization, a high-res full frame sensor that would allow faster shutter speeds, is more responsive, and has a much better autofocus system. It can also do nice video (4K even).

But that price tag …

At Least They’re Becoming Friends …

Our cats Boo and Trixie looking out the window while sitting on the kitchen counter

… so I can overlook the fact that there are two cats on the kitchen counter. This little window nook provides an excellent view of the squirrels that run up and down the fence to move between the front yard and back. Boo and Trixie are genuinely becoming friends, this morning as I was getting ready for work they were happily chasing each other from bedroom to bedroom.

Sam, on the other hand, is very much a work in progress.

The Trixie Maneuver

Our cats Trixie and Boo resting on the heating vent

Back in March I was photographing Boo resting on the heating vent when we experienced the Trixie Maneuver, where she approached and backed up and sat down right in front of him, anxiously waiting to see if he would attack her. She had been trying these submissive approaches with Boo, mostly unsuccessfully, but while his eyes went wide for a moment, he did allow her to stay, and she leaned over on her side with her feet and tail overlapping his hands.

While it took a couple of months for Boo to accept Trixie, peace does not yet reign among the cats in our household. Boo and Sam have been at odds since Emma died and Trixie arrived, and Sam has had enough of both the young cats. He’s fine if they are on their own but swats them if they try to snuggle with him.

These things take time, and to help normalize relations I’ve been lining the three of them up each day to give them some cat treats, and they all get along fine then. Sam will be a lot happier when he relents, as he’ll love having extra snuggling partners, but for the moment he’s curled up in my lap and happy to be on his own.

Our cat Boo with Trixie's feet and tail overlapping his paws

Have Boo, Will Travel

Our black-and-white cat Boo sits in a paper bag

After the arrival of Trixie, Boo decided it was time he was moving on and packaged himself for transport.

I took this with my little Canon mirrorless camera but the light levels were so low that the image quality suffered. I really enjoy the concept of mirrorless cameras and would like to use them for most of my non-wildlife photography, but it will mean moving away from Canon for the first time ever as they are deliberately (and perhaps understandably) holding back on designing good ones until the market matures. Sony has some full-frame models that would have better handled this scene, if I had to choose today I’d probably go that route, but the expense of buying new lenses is holding me back at the moment.

Don’t Make Eye Contact! Don’t Look Her in the Eyes!

Boo as a kitten hiding under the baker's rack

A picture from a couple of years ago when we were starting Boo on his introduction to the rest of the family after a couple of weeks in isolation. Emma (the black cat) was stalking Boo everywhere as he explored the house, and eventually he went under the baker’s rack in the kitchen for a little timeout. He was avoiding making eye contact with Emma and was clearly getting a little overwhelmed so we continued his introduction slowly, a few hours each day until everyone was comfortable.