Post by JayBee-Bug on May 12, 2006 17:16:52 GMT -5
There are three basic methods to get your catz to pose.
The Camera Method
This is the most straight-forward. You keep on snapping photos until your cat decides to pose for you. You should pick your cat up, wait for it to turn in your hand until it is perfectly aligned, drop it, and then snap a photo or pet it the instant it hits the ground to get it to hold still. Then snap photos until it strikes a pose for you to capture. If it moves out of alignment, put it back.
The Petz Door Method
Sometimes when your cat first comes out of the petz doors, it will pose for you. Thus, you keep letting it out, putting it away, and letting it out again until it poses. The difficulty here is making sure the cat is aligned when it decides to pose. Catz will pose in all directions if they feel like it! You need to 'guide' it with your cursor when it first comes out, because it tends to follow and approach your 'hand' when it first comes out. So 'lead' the cat when it walks out to a nice side profile, then let it approach the hand. Hopefully it will stop and pose!
The Love Potion Method
Usually when you spray a catz with the love potion, it will jump and then pose and look at you with unhappy eyes (annoyed at being sprayed
. You need to pick the cat up and align it perfectly facing LEFT. Then spray it with the potion. It will jump, flip to the exact RIGHT, and then pose. The downsides to this are that it will always pose with sad eyes (which are not standard except for OSH-type catz), and that you need to be quick and get the love potion out of the way in time to take the picture.
Catz Pose Trouble-Shooting
That is, a list of BAD poses. ^_^ My very patient cat Skyler will serve as an example.
RUMP TOO FAR
The kitty's rump is facing too far away from the camera (or the chest is too close, however you like to see things).
RUMP TOO CLOSE
The kitty's rump is facing too close to the camera (or the chest is too far away).
BUTT SHOT
Uh . . .! I hope this one is obvious to you! ;D Even if your cat considers his butt to be his best side, the judges won't be impressed by this pose angle!
LEFT POSE
Only major problem here is that he's posing left. (right-facing is standard, but some judges accept left) You can always tell when a cat is posing left or right, even when the photo is flipped. The back leg that's closest to the camera will be held further from the body than the other back leg when a cat poses left. The back leg closest to the camera will be held closer to the body than the other leg when the cat poses right.
STUPID TAIL!
Looks ok, but . . . that tail is not so good. We want it nicely curved over the body. When your cat poses, wait for the perfect moment a half-second or so before the tail has swung into place and snap the picture. By the time the picture has been taken it should be perfect.
PRE POSE
If you cat keeps doing this when you snap pictures, don't fret. That's normal. It's doing a little pre-pose stance. It also may sit down, waving its tail, looking at you, or continuously hop up to the cursor and lick your hand. These are all preposing type behaviors. Keep taking pictures and it's bound to pose sooner or later!
LOOKIN' GOOD
Body is aligned in a perfectly straight profile, front legs are aligned so that you can only see one leg, there's a space in between the back legs, the tail is curved nicely over the body, the eyes are open and looking at the camera.
Different Catz Breedz Concerns
Feel free to post comments, questions, etc.
The Camera Method
This is the most straight-forward. You keep on snapping photos until your cat decides to pose for you. You should pick your cat up, wait for it to turn in your hand until it is perfectly aligned, drop it, and then snap a photo or pet it the instant it hits the ground to get it to hold still. Then snap photos until it strikes a pose for you to capture. If it moves out of alignment, put it back.
The Petz Door Method
Sometimes when your cat first comes out of the petz doors, it will pose for you. Thus, you keep letting it out, putting it away, and letting it out again until it poses. The difficulty here is making sure the cat is aligned when it decides to pose. Catz will pose in all directions if they feel like it! You need to 'guide' it with your cursor when it first comes out, because it tends to follow and approach your 'hand' when it first comes out. So 'lead' the cat when it walks out to a nice side profile, then let it approach the hand. Hopefully it will stop and pose!
The Love Potion Method
Usually when you spray a catz with the love potion, it will jump and then pose and look at you with unhappy eyes (annoyed at being sprayed
. You need to pick the cat up and align it perfectly facing LEFT. Then spray it with the potion. It will jump, flip to the exact RIGHT, and then pose. The downsides to this are that it will always pose with sad eyes (which are not standard except for OSH-type catz), and that you need to be quick and get the love potion out of the way in time to take the picture.Catz Pose Trouble-Shooting
That is, a list of BAD poses. ^_^ My very patient cat Skyler will serve as an example.
RUMP TOO FAR
The kitty's rump is facing too far away from the camera (or the chest is too close, however you like to see things).
RUMP TOO CLOSE
The kitty's rump is facing too close to the camera (or the chest is too far away).
BUTT SHOT
Uh . . .! I hope this one is obvious to you! ;D Even if your cat considers his butt to be his best side, the judges won't be impressed by this pose angle!
LEFT POSE
Only major problem here is that he's posing left. (right-facing is standard, but some judges accept left) You can always tell when a cat is posing left or right, even when the photo is flipped. The back leg that's closest to the camera will be held further from the body than the other back leg when a cat poses left. The back leg closest to the camera will be held closer to the body than the other leg when the cat poses right.
STUPID TAIL!
Looks ok, but . . . that tail is not so good. We want it nicely curved over the body. When your cat poses, wait for the perfect moment a half-second or so before the tail has swung into place and snap the picture. By the time the picture has been taken it should be perfect.
PRE POSE
If you cat keeps doing this when you snap pictures, don't fret. That's normal. It's doing a little pre-pose stance. It also may sit down, waving its tail, looking at you, or continuously hop up to the cursor and lick your hand. These are all preposing type behaviors. Keep taking pictures and it's bound to pose sooner or later!
LOOKIN' GOOD
Body is aligned in a perfectly straight profile, front legs are aligned so that you can only see one leg, there's a space in between the back legs, the tail is curved nicely over the body, the eyes are open and looking at the camera.
Different Catz Breedz Concerns
- From my experience, Russian Blue, Tabby, and Maine Coon all pose like a dream. It's best to use the standard camera method with them and train them to pose at the click of the camera. Make sure to pet them a bunch after they pose for you, so they'll do it more often! (Tabbies & MCs pose wide-eyed, RBs pose with straight eyelids)
- B&W Shorthairs are very hyper, I've found, and hard to get to sit still long enough to pose. Nothing special you can do, just have to be a bit more persistent with them. (B&Ws pose with 'angry' eyes)
- Siamese will not do a standard pose for the camera. You either must use the love potion or petz door methods to get a standard pose from them. I prefer the petz door method, because most judges I run into dislike the 'sad eyes' the love potion makes. Again, you can train your cat to pose very often when they first leave the petz door. Just pet them a bunch when they do and soon they'll make it a habit.
- Alley Catz DO have a natural camera pose of their own, believe it or not. It's just extremely difficult to get one from them. They will pose with angry eyes. It is much easier, I've found, to train them on the petz door method; they will pose with normal eyes like this. It will take patience, they are not the most cooperative breed, but it works.
- Orange Shorthairs will always pose with 'sad eyes,' but like the Alley, they're hard to pose with the camera. While Alley Catz tend to hiss and spit at the camera when you snap photos, oshies tend to give scaredy poses or run. Thus, it's easier to train them on the petz door method or just use the love potion. I suggest the love potion, since sad eyes are the norm for them!
- Chinchilla Persians make it tricky to tell when they're about to pose. Catz will do a small backwards hop to 'get into position' moments before they pose for the camera. But sometimes they will do this hop without posing, especially chins. Chins also wait longer in between the hop and pose, it's a sort of "lag." So wait longer with them. They will pose with 'lazy' eyes, but there are two versions of this. Get the eyelids that aren't quite as lazy. Persians and Chinchilla Persians can suffer from 'sleepy sickness.' They tend to go limp when you pick them up, and fall on their stomachs when you drop them, which can be hard when posing them. I recommend letting them approach your cursor to align themselves on their own rather than picking them up to do it, if you have this sleepy sickness problem. Also, because of their fluffiness, there will be no gap between their back legs. This is normal.
- Calico catz have droopy/uneven eyelids most of the time, and also tend to tilt their heads a lot. It is in fact possible to fine-tune the eyelid thing and get a better eyelid pose from them, but make that your second priority, something to save for when you're ready to perfect things. The leg/body alignment is the most vital. I find it especially hard getting the front legs aligned in this breed. It's fairly common for posers to pose calis at a less than perfect profile (the space between back legs thus isn't there) in order to get the front legs to look aligned. I feel their pain, especially when you add the eyelid problems into the mix, (and the tendency of the tips of their tails to not curve nicely inward, too!) but I still prefer a pose with perfect body profile.
Feel free to post comments, questions, etc.
