 |
October 27, 2009 |
|
 |
|
|
Dress-up Kitty
FOUND by Sam
in Middlebury, Vermont
I think this gem was from the 1800s printed on a large glass plate negative that I found.
Sign in or register to start a profile and keep track of your comments. You may also post without creating a profile, but you'll have to answer some tough spam protection questions.
Fleet Week July 14, 2002 |
Mu = Dumbo December 26, 2007 |
Yeewww! February 25, 2008 |
Two Things November 20, 2005 |
 |
|
 |
         |
We collect FOUND stuff: love letters, birthday cards, kids' homework,
to-do lists, ticket stubs, poetry on napkins, telephone bills, doodles -
anything that gives a glimpse into someone
else's life. Anything goes...
that's so cute
the eyes say it all
Man! Ole timey porn was some weird shit.
I don't like cats, but this one looks like a sweet one.
Aw, sweet. How did they get kitty to hold that pose long enough? An 1800's plate photo took at least 60 seconds, and yet this is sharp and clear, not one false move on Midnight here's part.
Although as I look I can see the kitty was being held by a person covered with a blanket--how did they keep it from wanting to decamp suddenly?
Unless of course this is one of Beatrix Potter's more well-behaved models...
ak
Was this where P.D. James got her inspiration from in her book - "The Children of Men". No one could have babies anymore worldwide, so women took to babying cats instead. Creepy when you think about it!
this is something i would do to my cat..if he wasn't such a schizo
You don't get tone and texture like that in digital photography, do you?
I've got to agree with Farmer on this one.
Farmer, I assume that's a "Bill the cat" reference? It's been a long time since I read that. Always was one of my favorites. I should dig those books out for my kids.
Librarian, it's all in the camera - good camera, good photo.
Orinoco, would it take 60 seconds even in bright sunlight? My knowledge of such things is limited.
All that being said, our cats would even tolerate the outfit being put on, never mind sitting still for a photo. If I tried this with our cays, I'd have life-long scars.
Grammar hounds, is life-long supposed to be hyphenated? Just wondering.
Yup, life-long can be hyphenated, or one word. A lifelong ambition.
And I think that's right about the 60 seconds. For the first old daguerrotypes you had to hold still for about 3 min, which is why they used to put people's heads in that clamp and therefore people look so odd in the old photos. They couldn't help blinking which blurred their eyes and made them look like zombies. But by the late 1800's (1897 anyway) the glass-plate box cameras had "advanced" enough to only need about a minute or slightly less. Which is why a lot of people didn't smile in them; holding a smile for a full minute can lead to grimacing.
It's interesting that in those days, paintings and drawings were believed to capture the "real person" much more than a photo. And today hardline photography enthusiasts feel the same about film vs. digital, or indeed B/W vs. colour.
Give me a good reflex lens any day.
I like a good reflex lense too. just attached to a digital body.
And Basil - you are a wealth of knowledge.
Photographic proof there were "crazy cat ladies" even back in the day
Is it possible that this cat is d e a d and the owner had the precious pet stuffed and dressed?
I mean, those eyes are kind of just...staring out there....
Perhaps it's....
CERAMIC!!
That is the disappointed fan of the Flying Mice who cancelled one week ago due to severe icing!
I do believe this one is a FAKE. Does not appear to be an old photo at all! Someone is pulling that wool blanket over your eyes, Found.
@ Feeling ... what about the film? Graininess? Speed? All that good stuff.
Flying mice, ceramic-ness, and cheeseburgers all aside ... this is a good photo to post on John Cleese's birthday. His 70th, if I count correctly.
Ooooooo - a cat changeling.
This looks just like my cat, Tatters. In a house with a 5-year-old and 3-year-old girls, there is no escape from being dressed in dolly clothes, should you be unfortunate enough to fit into them. Just ask my Boston Terrier, our other cats, the guinea pigs, and my husband's foot.
You can buy a wig for your cat here.
http://clipmarks.com/clipmark/66E6A0E8-5B3D-43
Speed is controlled by the camera - digital or film. What about graininess in pictures?
Isn't that like saying "I like this symphony recording, but it would be better if it just had more static and hiss."
Check out some beautiful images - digital.
http://photo.net/gallery/photocritique/filter
I see above the kitty's right paw what looks to be some kind of holder. So perhaps the kitty has gone to the great catnip cottage in the sky, and its owner wanted a memento mori.
Can't say whether the print is legitimately old or not. I do know that if I tried this with my male, green-eyed, all-black kitty, he would rip my eyeballs out.
Photoshop fabrication - very easy to do.
If the eyes had been painted in it might have made it more believable.
@ Feeling ... And if I were playing on that symphony recording, there'd be a LOT of hissing!
For some reason I have a hard time believing that people in the 1800's would do this to a live cat. Now I don't know much about the culture back then...but this one smells fishy:)
Graininess can be added on Picassa. I have done it many times, as well as changing a color pic to black and white, sepia, etc.
Librarian, I was dying to see the cat wig, but it isn't there. That would have made my day
I keep coming back to look at this kitty. I am really enjoying this found more than usual, for some strange reason.
I think that certinaly people in the 1800s would do this to a kitty. Why not? Women have always had the desire to "baby" things.
The cat looks alive to me, but I agree with the issue of the time stop. How would that work?
Sam, the finder, says it was a large glass plate negative. Sam! If you're checking in, where and how did you find this? We need answers!!!
I have to agree with Methinks. I cannot, for the life of me, believe a cat could sit 60 seconds without blinking, moving a paw, twitching its whiskers or lashing its tail about.
I DO think the cat looks genuinely alive. The thing about the eyes is that there's this really strong highlight in them that I believe comes from a studio floodlight. They may have taken this picture with an antique camera on a large glass plate negative, but they had to have help with the lighting. Strong studio light would negate the need for a long exposure.
Amazing things can be performed these days with Photoshop & other photo manipulation software. Methinks, MEthinks we have a hoax here...someone trying to see if he's talented enough to fool us into thinking this picture is from the 19th century.
I really couldn't care less if it's a fake or not, or if it was taken 100 years ago or 5 minutes ago. I like it.
That's enough for me.
I can see this as a graphics design assignment. Take a photo with your digi and alter it in Photoshop to look like an antique. Good job, man. But you ought to think about marketing this type of thing to greeting card companies. The cat's very photogenic. This cat could take you places.
If it is from the 1800s, it was done by a very rich person with lots of money to spare. Getting a portrait was expensive back time, and most people were lucky to have one of their kid, let alone their cat.
*back in that time
I think it's a delightfully-staged contemporary photograph. The dress looks like an antique, but the fabric under Mr. Whiskers seems wrong for some reason. (Boys wore that type of christening gown, right?) If it were a dead cat, wouldn't it be posed in a wicker chair or miniature loveseat? Still, I love it. It has FOUND a way into my heart. And thus, it is not a fake, but essentially true.
Everything is a hoax these days.
E'rbody tryin to get their 15 minutes of fame, Balloon Boy. It's all good...
Awww! This is adorable. It reminds me of a little book I have called Two Kittens. Cute antics of little embroidered kitties interspersed with pictures of real kitties dressed up and doing things like washing dishes and ironing...
--Wow- I googled it and came up with
(Whitman Publishing, Racine, WI, 1966) http://tinyurl.com/bibliokitties
where you can get a good-condition copy for a mere $14. Glad I got mine for ten cents at a yard sale.
When my daughter was 5 she had a kitten that would let her dress her up, including the bonnet, would lie on her back in a baby stroller with the blanket up to her "arms", and stay put while she was pushed up and down the street. That was a very special cat, she made it to about 18 years.
No can has digknitty?