Wednesday Flipbook

Cooper has taken another full day of photos with his collar camera. We have assembled them into another flipbook movie - we're loving this new exciting way to view his movements throughout the neighborhood!

He must have been a little sluggish on Wednesday, because he seems to be napping quite a lot. The final nap happened to take place curled up on my lap at my desk. Below the movie are a few of my favorite photos from the day.

Transcript of video: Yawn. Scratch. Yawn. Run into the bedroom. Stretch. Outside. Run. Run. Sit. Stretch. Inside for a snack. Outside. Nap. Nap. Roll over. Snooze. Yawn. Run. Flip. Run. Jump. Inside. Lap nap. Yawn. Sit. Nap.

One of our neighbors' lanterns. Great angle, Cooper!

Beautiful sun flare through the trees. Love this!

Green ivy leaves mixed with black wrought iron leaves in our gate.

Cooper hangs out with Deirdre and me in the bedroom. Getting ready in the morning is a full family activity!

The orange furry guy is currently sitting in an afternoon sunbeam, most likely wondering what's for dinner.

Cooper's Expanding Subject Matter

Cooper has been a bit distracted lately - or more realistically we have been a bit distracted lately. Oh yes, Cooper's still going out and shooting lots of pictures on sunny days. However, after he comes back with another set of 300 incredible shots we haven't been doing much more than enjoying them ourselves. Internet, we've been so selfish.

All this is just to say that Cooper is going to be a big brother! We're expecting a human baby in November. Cooper has been spending extra time watching TV with mom getting extra love and hoping that she's having kittens instead. So - does anyone have suggestions on how to take an only-cat and make him into a good big brother?

Also, Cooper wanted to share with you a photo he did not take, but has some professional notes on:
Cooper is currently licking an ice cube in Deirdre's hand. We're not sure it's cooling him off this hot evening - but it sure is keeping him entertained.

Tuesday Flipbook

On Tuesday we sent Cooper out for his weekly photo shoot. To him, it seemed like just another day on the job. But for us, it was a magical day to see his photos in motion for the first time.

Taking the 500+ photos Cooper took on Tuesday, I placed them into a movie sequence, creating a sort of flipbook. Much of the resulting video is a little disorienting, but there are moments you can see when Cooper was hiding under someone’s patio table for a while, then stalking in some tall grass, even napping (this is when the picture goes black for a bit).

Transcript of video: Outside. Outside. Run. Sit. Inside. Bathroom. Outside. Run. Run. Inside. Outside. Nap under neighbor's table. Flip over. Nap some more. Stretch. Run. Run. Leap. Sit.

Here are a few photos that jumped out from the rest:

I love that only a few of the blades of grass are in focus while Cooper was in hiding.
What at first looks like a flying saucer is the view under our neighbor's patio table. Cooper apparently napped here for over an hour.
Deirdre opens the door for Cooper, "Do you want to come in for more breakfast?"

I love the dreamy qualities to this image. Great shot, Cooper!

Cooper is now sprawled out on the kitchen floor, cooling off after a hot day. Good boy.

The Missing Roll

Cooper has been so busy lately. The sun has been shining extra long and extra bright which has made for some stunning photography.

Several months ago, in the dead of winter, Cooper went out to shoot one day and came back with the camera case, but no camera! The camera had fallen out of it's case during his adventures that day. Michael and I scoured the bushes around our house and the neighborhood but couldn't find his Cat Cam anywhere. DISASTER! What is our little orange artist without his camera but just another adorable house cat?

We called our friends at Mr.Lee's cat cam, where we'd obtained the kit to make the camera. They were wonderful and hooked us up with an overnight shipment. Cooper was back in the swing of things.

Fast forward three months to springtime, when all the neighborhood is abuzz with lawnmowers and happy humans coming out of hibernation. We were working in our yard, with Cooper's help of course, when our neighbor from two doors up comes up. In his hand? Cooper's original camera!! This intrepid little camera survived 3 months of Seattle winter - 12 inches of snow and 23 inches of rain - to come back to Cooper.

We were hoping to have some cool new photos to share from "the lost roll". Unfortunately, all we got was blackness. However! Michael has Cooper's old camera working again - with it's beautifully shallow depth of field. The photos we'll share over the next few weeks will be from his old, much beloved home-made Cat Cam.

Example 1 (above): This photo was taken by Cooper using the replacement camera. Notice that everything is pretty uniformly in focus.

Example 2 (above): This image was taken by Cooper using his old Camera. Notice the much more interesting depth of field that gives a more interesting portrayal of Cooper's eagle eye.

Finally Cooper heeds the calls of his fans at Fark.com for "more pictures of the hot wife". (See, he's not gay after all!) Though it looks like he may be about to pounce.

Cooper helping more in the garden.

He's Back! Now With More Cattitude!

Cooper has really been getting some incredible shots lately. A lot of people ask us if his fame is going to his head. We've really found that he's pretty much the same cat he always was. He gets a few more treats than usual - and a few more special dinners (regular kibble with organic mushroom broth) than he used to get. Sometimes he's cranky, but that may just be the change in seasons.

Lately he's just been interested in running out of the house as early as he can to beat the heat - he's been up and crying at the bedroom door every morning at 6 am. Then around noon, he's back in the Cross Films office helping Michael work. But by 5 pm you can only find him in the basement where it's 15 degrees cooler than anywhere else. In the evening he's full of energy stalking flies around the house.

In this photo, Cooper spies some neighborhood dogs probably wishing they could run around outside all day too. I can almost hear his thoughts on this one: "Oh, what's that guys? Bark? Bark? Bark? Yeah, I thought so. I may just sit here for an hour while you figure out how to get outside."

Cooper lurks in the bushes of this red house - which appears quite frequently in his photographs. I wonder if he notices the bird motif in the custom gate?

Cooper luxuriates in the early summer sun, nestled deep in the grasses where no one can see him. Nice DOF, Cooper.

Currently Cooper is wishing we'd open the windows that have no screens so he can escape into the night.

Springtime Photos

Springtime is here in Seattle and Cooper is enjoying it! Cherry blossoms are in bloom, birds are chirping, neighbors are out for walks, and Cooper is on the scene to document it all.

Cooper's photo gallery store is still accepting orders. This is where 24 of his all-time favorite photos are framed and available for purchase. He even signs the back of each one with a paw print.

This is a very rare self portrait of Cooper the cat! His image is reflecting in what I believe is our neighbors' sliding glass door.

This is one of our neighbors' cherry blossom trees. We can tell Cooper took this one for his mama.

Cooper rarely takes photos of his toys. He loves this one - it looks like two mice, but it's really just one toy mouse hanging in front of a mirror.

Cooper was apparently playing with a neighbor and his kids - we've seen them around our block.

After a long morning of photography, Cooper is taking a nap on my lap. It's still sunny outside, but sometimes he prefers to stay dreaming.

Cooper, meet America

Today Cooper has his national print debut in People Magazine! Holy jumping up and down kitty cat! That's big news all right.

For those of you visiting us for the first time, here's the story of the Cat Camera: Michael and I are filmmakers, so for us it was only natural that our cat would take up the family business. We purchased a Cat-Cam kit online and put it together and started sending him outside once a week with the light weight collar camera attached. When he would return at the end of the day with as many as 400 pictures, we had the answer to that age-old question, "what does my cat do all day?" We also had some surprisingly beautiful photos. We saw lush underbrush and even the sculptures in the back yards of our Seattle neighbors.

He has been shooting photos for about a year and a half now and we had been publishing them on Flickr. We were astounded when his minor online celebrity ballooned in December with his appearance on Animal Planet's Cats 101 program and the front page article about Cooper's photography in the Seattle Post-Intellegencer. Following his big media blitz on December 6th, we have had over 1.5 million hits on our Flickr. Since then Cooper has had a successful gallery exhibit here in Seattle, which was visited by over a thousand people and Cooper even sold a few prints. Clearly there is something about Cooper that strikes a chord with people!

For those of you interested in buying a Cooper Original photo for your home or office, you can visit Urban Light Studios online. View TV news clips about cooper at Cross Films. And you can check out Cooper's Flickr set featuring 139 pictures by Cooper and of Cooper wearing his Cat Cam.

The above picture is one of my personal all time favorites. We call it "Neighborhood Watch" and it's available for sale in the gallery store. Cooper has been a busy bee this week and he will have more artistic photos to share with his internet friends soon.