I like the off-kilter look of many of the pictures I took during this session, with the cats only partially in frame. There’s a good lesson there, and I’m only slightly insulted that I got compositions that I’m so fond of when I couldn’t even see what the picture would look like. Emma’s face being out of focus hurts this picture more than the motion ones, next time I’ll set the focus further from the wall.

This picture of Emma is one my favorites of my recent pictures. I had been playing with Sam but she crept in and suddenly leapt after the mouse. I love that her outstretched paw is blurred with motion, but wish her body was in better focus. I had preset the focus near the wall where Sam was jumping for it, but she came from beside me and so is mostly outside the plane. She’s moving enough that she wouldn’t have been sharp even if her body was in focus.

Despite the imperfections, I love the look of the ethereal black shadow lunging for her toy, the fingers of her paws splayed out in pursuit of her prey.

Now if only I could find someone to pay me to stay at home and play with the kittens all day …

My wife picked up a toy a while back that has become a favorite of the kittens. It seemed rather innocuous at first, it’s just a wand with a string and a detachable toy at the end.

But Sam goes absolute kitten crazy for the thing, especially when we attach a little furry mouse. Emma will chase it as well, but Sam will jump and leap and run around with no regard for life or limb (his or yours, forewarned is fair warned). He’ll sit outside the closet door where we keep the upstairs version (we bought two so that one is never far from hand), letting us know that he’d really like to play, you know, just in case we hadn’t noticed.

This is from my first attempt at capturing some of the mayhem. I put the camera on the tripod with the remote release attached, dangling the mouse with one hand and tripping the shutter with the other. I couldn’t see through the viewfinder so I had no idea what the pictures would look like, this is one of those times I would have loved to have a live view on the LCD and have the LCD flip out so I could see it from where I was sitting.

There wasn’t a lot of light coming in through the big picture window, so even with the camera cranked up to ISO1600, all of the shots are blurred. I didn’t have batteries for my flash, where I could have frozen his motion better. Still, not bad for a first attempt, and something I’d like to work at.

I’m actually the one who’s upside down in this picture, I laid on my back on the floor and waited for Sam to lean over from his window seat and look down. He likes sleeping on the seat, he’s sometimes there when I come home from work and he certainly seemed to enjoy watching me work in the flower beds the other day.