One of the nice things about having cats in the house is that they are always doing interesting things with their toys. My two cats have about 10 of these "pet" mice and they use them for all sorts of games and ritualistic activities. (One of their favorite games is to gather all of the mice at the top of the stairs and then toss them down--and then chase after them as if the mice have made a run for it.) I found this pair lying on the dining room floor, presumably left there to bask warmly in the sunlight (I have very benevolent cats). At any rate, I thought the sunlight and the shadows created a very fetching image, so I went and fetched my camera and shot about two dozen images from several angles and with a variety of zoom settings. Wildlife photography at its finest: "Smile little mice, the camera loves you!" The cats slept through the entire shoot, oh, well. Little do they know that they designed some of my photos for me.
One funny editing note: There was a thread sticking out of the top of the mouse on the left and I cloned it out in Photoshop (no one wants to see a mouse with a loose thread). But I forgot to edit the thread out of the shadow--look at the red circle here:
That's the shadow I forgot to get rid of. Lesson learned: make sure if you edit out something, you look for it's shadow too! Ahh, well, the mice were just happy not to be getting tossed up and down the stairs. Everyone needs a nap in the sunlight.
Photo Notes: Shot with a Nikon D90 using an 18-70mm Nikkor zoom. Shot with available light and captured in RAW; processed in Photoshop CS3. Exposure was 1/100 second at f/6.3, ISO 640.
Book Notes: If you're going to buy any of my books for Christmas this year, please shop locally--preferably at an independent book store. Amazon has recently released an app that allows you to scan bar codes at the local book store and then buy the book cheaper from Amazon. The net result of that is that you save a few bucks but you put the local store out of business.
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