What a Sweet Face
Posted: March 17, 2012 Filed under: bathroom, cat photographs, cats, daily photo, kelly, photographs, senior cats, tortoiseshell cats | Tags: cat photographs, cats, feline photographs, green-eyed- cat, pet photography, photography, tortoiseshell cat 2 CommentsKelly gets to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day too! Here she enjoys a warm, sunny windowsill in the bathroom, and she is content and relaxed. Her eyes really are quite green, but in this photo they get an extra boost from the sun reflecting off that mint green sink, directly below her.
Kelly has such delicate little features, that tiny little nose and whisker pads, and those short whiskers, and with her markings it is even more of a challenge to capture them because her face is nearly all black but for a few speckles.
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To see more daily photos go to “Daily Images” in the menu and choose “All Photos” or any other category.
All images used on this site are copyrighted to Bernadette E. Kazmarski unless otherwise noted and may not be used without my written permission. Please ask if you are interested in purchasing one as a print, or to use in a print or internet publication.
On St. Patrick’s Day, Drink Straight From the Tap
Posted: March 17, 2012 Filed under: bathroom, black cats, cat photographs, cats, daily photo, giuseppe, holiday, jelly bean, mewsette, mimi's children, mr. sunshine, my household of felines, photographs | Tags: cats drinking from faucet, drinking from the faucet, four black cats, four cats in green sink, photography, st. patrick's day 6 Comments
Have a drink with family and friends.
My traditional St. Patrick’s Day greeting!
Especially if you’re the Parched Puddies having your daily drink in the mint green sink! It’s Giuseppe, Jelly Bean, Mr. Sunshine and Mewsette. They’re not Irish and neither am I, but when you’re getting together with family and drinking from the tap in the presence of something green on St. Patrick’s Day…well, we non-Irish have to improvise.
I ran this last year on St. Patrick’s Day, but it’s still too good not to share again! All four do this every day—including this morning—in fact doing their best to lead me back upstairs after breakfast to turn the faucet on to a drip so they can drink. Just this morning the light was perfect* and all four were drinking at one time, plus you can actually see the faucet (a little) and tell it’s a sink. They’re pretty big and block a lot of the view.
Also enjoy an older gallery of the Fantastic Four plus Mimi and others in the green and white bathroom on my website.
*Photographing black cats in natural light is a trick, and many of the other photos I have of them drinking in the sink—or doing anything as a group, for that matter—often turns out as a black blob with eyes and ears if I’m not careful. It was often difficult to tell what was in the sink, let alone the number of cats.
But the sun was bright that day and reflected off the white walls in the bathroom and I finally captured one of my favorite moments with these four.
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To see more daily photos go to “Daily Images” in the menu and choose “All Photos” or any other category.
All images used on this site are copyrighted to Bernadette E. Kazmarski unless otherwise noted and may not be used without my written permission. Please ask if you are interested in purchasing one as a print, or to use in a print or internet publication.
Can You Just Turn This Thing On? 2011
Posted: March 15, 2012 Filed under: bathroom, black cats, cat photographs, cats, daily photo, jelly bean, mr. sunshine, photographs | Tags: black cats, black cats in green sink, cats, cats at faucet, photography 3 Comments
Just turn it on.
Mr. Sunshine thinks if he stares at it long enough he will turn it on by the power of his mind. But then he also thinks he’s SuperCat.
I know better. Mom is all-powerful and all-knowing and only she can make magic things happen.
I hope she reads this and I get some extra attention, pets, laptime and maybe food too.
~Jelly Bean
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To see more daily photos go to “Daily Images” in the menu and choose “All Photos” or any other category.
All images used on this site are copyrighted to Bernadette E. Kazmarski unless otherwise noted and may not be used without my written permission. Please ask if you are interested in purchasing one as a print, or to use in a print or internet publication.
Composition in Black and Green: 2011
Posted: March 14, 2012 Filed under: bathroom, black cats, cat photographs, cats, daily photo, jelly bean, photographs | Tags: black cat, black cat in the sun, black cat on green sink, cat photographs, cats, feline photographs, pet photography, photography 2 Comments
Composition in Black and Green
Jelly Bean enjoys being washed in spring sunlight as I enjoy how the pattern of the window muntins falls across the wall, the sink and him.
Even though none of us is Irish, we’ll be celebrating this week with pictures of stunning black cats with those vintage mint green bath fixtures. And perhaps one with orange instead, you’ll see why later this week.
In the meantime, what you can’t hear in this photo is Jelly Bean’s loud, vigorous purr as it echoes in the sink, truly an amazing percussive technique.
A little later this year I’ll be choosing up to a dozen “Compositions in Black and Green” for a set of greeting cards, notebook covers and “black cat wear”, tees, bags and other useful items. Remember the ones you like and let me know.
I’ll do this again this year as well! Let me know your favorite images of black cats for “black cat wear”.
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To see more daily photos go to “Daily Images” in the menu and choose “All Photos” or any other category.
All images used on this site are copyrighted to Bernadette E. Kazmarski unless otherwise noted and may not be used without my written permission. Please ask if you are interested in purchasing one as a print, or to use in a print or internet publication.
Pretty Pleeeeze…? From A Year Ago
Posted: January 17, 2012 Filed under: bathroom, black cats, cat photographs, cats, daily photo, jelly bean, mr. sunshine, my household of felines | Tags: cat photographs, pet photography, photographs, two black cats, two cats in sink 6 Comments
Mr. Sunshine turns on the charm
Mr. Sunshine will try every charming approach to get what he wants, and right now he wants a drink of water from the bathroom faucet. Who could resist? He has the most classically beautiful face of all four of his siblings, the nice wedge shape from his chin to his ears, exotic slanted yellow eyes and long, long straight whiskers and he’s the most curvy, and he knows if he catches me just right I’ll have a hard time turning away.
Jelly Bean is in the background, taking a break from his charming routine while Mr. Sunshine works. After all, you can’t go wrong if you just sit in the sink and keep your nose right under the faucet.
I do turn the faucet on for them every day, though I make sure they also drink from the water bowls around the house. Still, a stainless fountain may be in their future.
May I See Some ID?
Posted: October 8, 2011 Filed under: bathroom, black cats, cat behavior, cat photographs, cats, daily photo, mr. sunshine, my household of felines, pets, photographs, western pennsylvania humane society | Tags: black cats, cat party, cat photographs, cat photography, cats in the bathroom, donation item for cats, feline photographs, pet photography, photography 16 Comments
May I See Some ID?
“This is a private party for ‘Cats Who Drink Straight from the Tap’. You need to be a member of this club to enter.”
“This is my bathroom.”
“This is our bathroom. We grew up in here.”
“This is my house.”
“Nonsense. We spend more time here than you do.”
“I’m your human.”
“That’s nice.”
“I open the food.”
“Of course you do.”
“I might decide not to.”
“Of course you won’t.”
“Who turns on the faucet for this party?”
Silence.
“Guess you have to let me in.”
“I was going to anyway.”
“Sure.”
We’ll be asking for your help in choosing photos of black cats for a special donation item!
I initially ran this photo last year on this day, and I’ve chosen to run it again because it was very popular! This photo will be one of at least a dozen (probably more) I’ll be asking you to vote on in order to choose two (or three if we can’t narrow it down) as I prepare a special donation to the Western Pennsylvania Humane Society (WPHS).
Every year around the country, thousands of black cats are left in shelters after others are adopted. We have so many explanations for this—they are difficult to photograph, people may be superstitious, they may simply be difficult to see when included in groups of other cats and kittens in crowded shelters. We who love black cats need to give them a little extra benefit in presenting them for adoption and show what incredible companions they make for anyone who may be skeptical in the face of the myth of the black cat.
I’ll be creating and donating a premium thank you gift for those who adopt a black cat during the month of November at the WPHS: a sizable black canvas tote bag (still choosing the style, but it may be a messenger bag!) with the selected photos and a quote printed on the bag, plus a notebook with the same image on the cover. Adopters can use the notebook to keep notes on kitty’s health and the bag to store records or kitty’s toys and treats, or they can simply use the gifts for themselves as a thank you for adopting a black cat from the Western Pennsylvania Humane Society.
I am gathering photos now and trying to narrow them down so that it won’t take forever for people to browse them, but I’m biased because they are my kitties and it’s hard for me to choose! In the meantime, if you think one of the photos I’ve posted on The Creative Cat would be one to absolutely convince someone of the utter perfection of black cats, please post the title of the blog post or of the photo in the comments section. I will need to post the photos for voting by next weekend, and I will give a week for people to browse and bid, then I’ll have to get busy in production to have the materials ready for November.
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All images and text used on this site are copyrighted to Bernadette E. Kazmarski unless otherwise noted and may not be used in any way without my written permission. Please ask if you are interested in purchasing one as a print, or to use in a print or internet publication.
A Little Baby Foster Kitten
Posted: September 27, 2011 Filed under: animal rescue, bathroom, black cats, cat photographs, cats, feline health, fostering pets, kittens, neonatal kittens | Tags: cats, feline photographs, foster, foster kitten, kittens, neo-natal kitten 4 Comments
In fact, the world does revolve around me.
It’s hard to believe it’s been two years since a friend brought little Fromage to me, a tiny kitten screeching for food and comfort somehow lost and found in an abandoned lot during the struggles of the G20 Summit in Pittsburgh in 2009. I took the photo above about a week after she arrived, but the photos in the article below were from her first few days. So much happened in a short time: she arrived three months after I lost Namir, Dickie came to live with us for a year a few weeks after she arrived, and the Fantastic Four had their first taste of fostering a kitten—and taught me a lesson in nurturing, that it’s best done by one, or four, of your own kind! She’s all grown up now at 2, so she thinks, and I still get to visit her. The other articles are linked below; enjoy watching her grow up!

Fromage on Day One--in my house, at least!
Little, little kittens fascinate me. A miniature that can easily fit in my outstretched hand with a Hello Kitty head and stubby legs sits and licks the side of her paw then swipes it across her face, though she sways perilously from side to side with the effort.
As soon as their eyes have barely opened at ten days to two weeks of age every moment is spent building skills and coordination, gathering knowledge out of the air and fearlessly exploring their surroundings and conquering the errant toy or human foot that gets in their way. They never worry about falling down or making mistakes or looking stupid.

Fromage attempts to talk to Basement Cat.
By six weeks they can climb a scratching post, run faster than you, chase and kill a small insect or even a tiny animal if necessary, give themselves a complete bath and get into more trouble than you can imagine because they have yet to develop any common sense.
I am fostering a very young kitten for the first time in many, many years. She came in at about two weeks of age, fitting herself from nose to rump easily on the length of my hand, her eyes open but that cloudy blue gray that still doesn’t focus. A friend’s daughter heard her at night, tangled in brambles in a city lot, squeaking with a volume hard to believe in something that weighed just a few ounces. Her little life depended on that volume, though, and her persistence and vocal skill paid off in her rescue and is typically indicative of a cat with a strong will to live, able to face down most ills that may befall her through the rest of her life.
That early audaciousness has translated into an easy adaptability and an outgoing, affectionate personality, even in less than a week. At about three weeks old she had doubled her entry weight, at least by my little postal scale, was a little longer than my outstretched hand, her legs had grown so she was at least off the floor, her eyes were clear and her pupils reacted to light, and she was ready for action.

Fromage gets lost in one of my skirts. I hope it doesn't damage her young eyes.
At this age she is considered “neo-natal”, not newborn but still recently-born and needing some critical nurturing. Her body was really too young to digest solid food at first, so I purchased kitten formula and a tiny bottle with miniature nipples to fit on the top. She was confused by the bottle, which did not feel like Mom, so I put a few drops of formula on the inside of my arm and got her little face in it. It had warmed to my skin temperature and she began lapping immediately and kneading my arm. I slipped the nipple of the bottle toward her tongue and squeezed a little more formula onto my arm, and eventually she got the connection and finally nursed from the bottle for a little but mostly from the crook of my arm and then from a shallow dish.
It took one session to recognize the cloth I put on my lap when I fed her. She danced and squeaked and climbed all over me as I sat down on the floor with her formula.
On St. Patrick’s Day, Drink Straight From the Tap
Posted: March 17, 2011 Filed under: bathroom, black cats, cat photographs, cats, holiday, mimi's children, my household of felines, photographs | Tags: cats drinking from faucet, drinking from the faucet, four black cats, four cats in green sink, photography, st. patrick's day 12 Comments
Have a drink with family and friends.
Especially if you’re the Parched Puddies having your daily drink in the mint green sink! They’re not Irish and neither am I, but when you’re getting together with family and drinking from the tap in the presence of something green on St. Patrick’s Day…well, we non-Irish have to improvise.
I ran this last year on St. Patrick’s Day, but it’s still too good not to share again! All four do this every day—including this morning—in fact doing their best to lead me back upstairs after breakfast to turn the faucet on to a drip so they can drink. Just this morning the light was perfect* and all four were drinking at one time, plus you can actually see the faucet (a little) and tell it’s a sink. They’re pretty big and block a lot of the view.
*Photographing black cats in natural light is a trick, and many of the other photos I have of them drinking in the sink—or doing anything as a group, for that matter—often turns out as a black blob with eyes and ears if I’m not careful. It was often difficult to tell what was in the sink, let alone the number of cats.
But the sun was bright that day and reflected off the white walls in the bathroom and I finally captured one of my favorite moments with these four.
Can You Just Turn This Thing On?
Posted: March 15, 2011 Filed under: bathroom, black cats, cat photographs, cats, jelly bean, mr. sunshine, my household of felines, photographs | Tags: black cats, black cats in green sink, cats at faucet 1 Comment
Just turn it on.
Mr. Sunshine thinks if he stares at it long enough he will turn it on by the power of his mind. But then he also thinks he’s SuperCat.
I know better. Mom is all-powerful and all-knowing and only she can make magic things happen.
I hope she reads this and I get some extra attention, pets, laptime and maybe food too.
~Jelly Bean