January 27th, 2010

Portraits by Cooper

Cooper is a pretty solitary fellow when he’s out with his camera. He usually sticks to photographing the landscape, trees and plants. Every now and then we get a surprise cameo appearance from a human subject.

Last week Cooper was roaming the neighborhood with his camera and ran into a neighbor, Elaine Thompson, who is a professional photographer here in Seattle. No stranger to Cooper and his work, she shot a photo of him, and he shot a photo of her!  Elaine shoots all sorts of amazing photos and Cooper is pretty jelous of her work with the Seattle Seahawks – isn’t that a type a bird?

“Neighbor Visit” Here is Elaine saying hello to Cooper!

“Dorks” This is one of Cooper’s best known portraits of his humans, Deirdre & Michael.

“Baby Brother” Up close and personal with Cooper’s little sibling, Cameron.

“Garden Girl” Cooper commiserates with a gardener pulling weeds.

“Little Boy Orange” This cute child holds his hand out in friendship to Cooper.

Cooper is currently running around in the yard taking pictures. He wears his camera only once a week, which allows him to simply be a cat the rest of the time.

January 24th, 2010

¡Cooper es Bueno!

Cooper was just featured in an article in La Nacion newspaper in Buenos Aires, Argentina! This is his first South American press. The author of the article contacted us after visiting Cooper’s Exhibit in Chicago, Illinois (USA) at the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum.

Our friend Maureen is currently living in Argentina and translated the article for us. The article has some nice descriptions of Cooper’s work in the exhibit. Here is an excerpt:

Bright colours, unexpected angles… Cooper’s work takes you by surprise. It is even more astonishing to think that the viewfinder of the camera is not at eye level, but at his chest.

"Fall Colors"

Through April 11 the exhibition Cooper: Photographer Cat is on display at The Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum, which is funded by the Chicago Academy of Sciences. There are 24 unedited works, such as The Light (La luz) taken from the bottom of a staircase, a disquieting brightness projects from above, a notion that is repeated in Land of Adventure (Tierra de aventura), Fall Colors (Colores de otoño), an exquisite composition of organic geometry in a garden, Sweetness and Light (Dulzura y luz), a luminous abstraction in movement, Small Friends (Pequeños amigos), a different perspective of garden dwarves, New Haircut (Nuevo corte de pelo), an almost cinematographic portrait of a cat underneath a car and the suggestive Risqué (Riesgo) one of his humans in a nightdress, caught off guard in the kitchen in a not-so-discreet shot. [Translation note: The article’s translation of “Risqué” is actually “risk” in Spanish, instead of “atrevido”.]

Here is a link to the article for those of you who speak and read Spanish:http://www.lanacion.com.ar/nota.asp?nota_id=1224933.

Cooper is currently curled up against the heater. ¡Gato bueno!

December 1st, 2009

Cooper Shoots Video!

Cooper with Video Cat CamWell, it’s finally happened – Cooper is now shooting with a Video Cat Cam! We’ve been working on getting it up and running for a couple of weeks and today he went outside with it for the first time. It’s about the same size as his still photo camera, very lightweight, and doesn’t seem to bother him at all when he’s wearing it.

We currently have the Video Cat Cam set to shoot video for 2 minutes then sleep for 2 minutes. It’s really interesting to watch the unedited footage – such a different experience than going through the still photos from his original camera.

In this video you’ll see Cooper spy on some dogs being walked, leap up on top of an 8-foot fence and enter his cat door to eat an afternoon snack.

Many of you who have been following Cooper’s work over the years have noticed that he’s not shot any photos of “wild” animals in the neighborhood. We think the video camera is going to be our best opportunity to see birds and squirrels as Cooper lurks in the bushes.

Next time he goes out to shoot video we plan to change the camera settings to shoot 1 minute and sleep for 3 minutes to give him a greater chance of actually moving – he spends a lot of time in one hiding spot before moving on to the next!

IMG_3903

The camera came from our friends at Mr Lee’s Cat Cam who are also the makers of Cooper’s original camera.

Cooper is currently attacking the Christmas tree. You can look forward to video footage of him being squirted with the spray bottle and shown to the door.

September 17th, 2009

Happy Birthday Cooper!

Make a wish!Today is Cooper’s 4th Birthday! To celebrate, Cooper not only gets this fun new website revamp, but also a special meal which he very patiently waited for us to get a good photo of. What a good boy!
It’s been a tremendous year for Cooper – starting with Animal Planet shortly after his birthday last September all the way through to our brand new friends we’ve met on Facebook and the blog, we’ve been so impressed with the outpouring of love and support for him. I would say he’s been taking it all in stride. His photography work continues to surprise and amaze us and his disposition couldn’t be sunnier.

We asked him what he wanted for his birthday and he was strangely silent on the subject. So, he ended up getting some “shrimp brittle” from the natural pet food store and a hand made catnip carrot. Though I should mention that he discovered where we were hiding his presents on Monday and ran outside with the carrot before we could catch him.

Dig in little dude, you deserve it!

Eat up little dude, you deserve it!