Note: Contest coming up tomorrow. Don’t miss it. More below.
I’ve been checking out cat blogs this week. Why? I want to plan a blog tour and I also want to know what other cat bloggers are doing. One thing I notice is the photographs bloggers use in their posts. Some of them are amazingly exquisite. Some, I’m pretty sure, are stock photos. While many bloggers post stories about their own cats—maybe even have the cats do the speaking—and they photograph their own cats wearing costumes, trying out a new product, visiting the vet, etc, others bring in photos from other sites.
I’m always on the lookout for cats to photograph for this blog. While you’ll see many
photos of Lily and Sophie (my cats) and Smokey (my mother’s cat), I also love receiving pictures from readers, friends, relatives. And I snap photos of cats wherever I go—walking through the neighborhood, out the window of my home or the car, when visiting someone with cats, at animal shelters, cat shows, cat cafes, and so forth.
Sometimes it’s a cat photo that sparks an idea for a post or a situation in one of my stories. Remember the piece I did on cats’ whiskers? That idea came about when I saw the photo I took at a cat show of a cat with a tangle of long whiskers. After a photo shoot with Marmalade, our grandchildren’s marmalade/ginger cat, I decided to do a post on orange tabbies. I like photographing cats in the out of doors to illustrate various posts on adventuring cats or ferals, etc. And kittens—I love sharing photos of kittens in all of their delightful innocence. These pictures might accompany a post on coat color, eye color, abandoned kittens, adoption, breeds, cat to cat interaction, caring for kittens, and so forth.
Sometimes I set up a photo. For example, when I was asked to choose someone to win one
of my books during a blog tour, I wrote the names of the finalists on pieces of paper and let Lily choose one. Of course, I took a picture of her picking the winner. One time my theme was something to do with money and I photographed Lily with dollar bills all around her. Of course, she posed nicely for me when I wanted her picture with my first book in the Klepto Cat Mystery series. But most of the pictures I post are happenstance and candid. Thank heavens for cell phones—they’re always at-the-ready when the cats are posing pretty.
Speaking of photographs, tomorrow I’m launching a contest involving some of my photographs. You’ll have the chance to win a kindle or a print copy of Meowmoirs of a Klepto Cat. If you’ve already have that book and don’t need a second one as a gift, I’ll send you Book 30 upon publication. (For those winners living outside the US, I’ll provide the Kindle version only.)
