:-)) Sunday Cat! #834 October 8, 2023 ((-:

Welcome all to the Sunday Cat!, a weekly gathering of image makers on a subject of mutual interest, our feline friends. The Sunday Cat! has appeared each Sunday, except for a brief interruption in September, 2016, since Anton AK started the thread at DPReview on 23 September 2007. Successive thread managers have been John King, Warriormouse, Robert J, Coldamus, Robert J again (with an assist by StanTsui) and since September 2016, former lurker, me. With the announced shuttering of DPReview (which did not happen), the last Sunday Cat! there was hosted on 2 April 2023. After taking a leap of faith, the Sunday Cat! landed here at its new home on 9 April 2023.

Occupied Kitty of the Week!

Claws out! Fat Egg celebrates the change of season by playing with the spinning orb! Meanwhile, his kitty friends are caught a little off-guard by the activity. :)
~~Image by @AnnieNg

As said by Warriormouse, "Photos can be more than just art, they can be memories, so come share your picture and stories of your feline companions with us."

“Official” posting time is every Sunday at 0000 UTC. Because this is Saturday afternoon for me, posting time may vary to accommodate my schedule. I'll try to post a message if I know I will be very late. Anyone anxious to start the new week is free to do so. But if you do, please PM me so I don’t accidentally double post.

Come one, come all! All cats, all cameras welcome. Images from any time, any place. Let the Sunday Cat! be a refuge where nice comments abound and only constructive criticism is given when it's requested.

The Sunday Cat! is now open for business. :D

Last week's purrs, #833 / DPRv #26

Thread Manager's Corner:
I promised myself this past week to not turn my computer on until I had time to try to reinstall the video drivers. Well...I never had the time, so the computer never got turned on until today. I hope I can try a fix in the coming week. Meantime I made sure to copy off my Sunday Cat! notes so I can use another computer next week if I still haven't fixed this one! Thanks so much for being here when I'm not. :)

~~~ Kim

Though small in size, the imprint they make on our lives is huge.

Street cats of Istanbul

When there are a lot of kitties present, I guess they can present a number of interesting photo opportunities as well. This kitty is ready to roll! It is of course also a wonderful portrait. Lovely catch-lights in the eyes, a look of concentration and immense detail in the image. The leg markings are interesting in that they are spotted while the kitty is striped. The variety of their coat patterns is endless.

Because I was largely offline last week, I missed the opportunity for a timely posting acknowledging the eighth anniversary of Cali's passing (3 Oct 2015). Cali was the sweetest kitty I have ever known. She had an incredibly loving instinct, probably from having had a number of litters before she was captured and spayed. She loved kitties, especially calico ones, and when her best friend Sheila died, in desperation, because up until that point she was very frightened of humans, she turned to me. Sometimes she would follow me down the hall, purring loudly and looking up at me as we walked together. :) Her purr was such that she could be in one room in the house and you would hear it while in another. She filled the whole house with love. In her 17 or so years she never gave up on living, but her body gave up on her so she had to be put to sleep forever.

2009

2012

Final weeks.

Looking at the photos I can see what a wonderful cat she must have been.
I would have made friends with her on the streets of Istanbul.
Of course she had a much better life!
The photos of our no longer living cats still bring a smile to my face today.
They simply enriched our lives.

Hi,

I have to dig into my old files as I know I have more. Also eyeball my film negatives.

Stan

Hi,

I have dug up some more kitty shots.

This one is KC, because my mother didn't think of a name and so it stands for Kitty Cat.

This from a film scan. 1980s. KC was a kitten my cousin's cat had. We went to see them and KC picked my mother. He lived to 16 years old when his kidney's failed.

This is the back porch of the house I grew up in and eventually bought when my dad retired. Where they moved to, there was no way he could go outside and survive for long. This place is on a mountain and mom and dad moved to the northern shores of Lake George, NY. Way too much traffic on NYS Route 9N which went right by their place. After dad passed away, and KC was 14 then, he wasn't as interested in Outdside so I gave him back to mom.

Somewhere, I have a shot of KC a few months before he passed on, sitting on mom's lap. But I haven't found it yet. Probably sitting in a folder of Raw shots with no associated Jpegs.

Stan

Here are my cats Kiki and Ruby exploring after we moved in to the new house. Didn't get further than the porch, though!
I just realized that the "High" setting for Lightroom's Output Sharpening is very crunchy! Gotta tone it down next time.

Very beautiful cats and correspondingly beautiful photos.
I can't see any oversharpening on my screen.

Going back to those old film shots really shows us how good we have it these days with digital. But it seems that each of those old images is more precious, since we have so few. It sounds like it as a perfect ending for KC. Old enough to not need to romp around outside anymore, he could go back to his first love and help your mom in filling the void she must have felt.

I'm going to live dangerously and try to upgrade the video driver on my computer before posting today. Wish me luck!

Thomas keep watching…..from the top

He looks a little surprised to be captured while relaxing in his lair. :)

Hi,

Here is a KC story:

That back porch is an addition off the dining room. In the mountains of NYS, no one has air conditioning. So, a summer dining space as it were.

So I was sitting there watching KC, who was watching a flying squirrel who lived in an old birdhouse in a big oak tree. Up the tree the cat goes. Out the branch the squirrel goes. Off into space and onto a pine tree trunk goes the squirrel. Off into space goes KC. Oops. Cats can't fly! Whump! Onto the ground he goes.

That ground is shale with about an inch of broken down tree leaf mulch on top. Not much cushion there. I figure that KC is now deceased. But, no. He moves still. Before I can get out the back door to check for broken bones, here comes Mr Squirrel. He walks right up to the cat and chatters. Then saunters....yes, that's the right word....back to that oak tree. KC just watched and laid there.

I get to him, and no damage. Well, physical damage at least. Good! Now I don't have a tragic tale to tell my mother. Rather a humorous one.

And now I can tell y'all! ;)

Stan