WHENEVER I’m doing something exciting, my human wants to take my pictures and follows me around with a mobile phone or a fancy camera.

Having the camera flashing in my eyes is not very nice but even when she wants to take my pictures without a flash even, it is quite a pain. She wants me to stay still when I’m excited and would rather run round and round or when I want to sit inside a box and then get out immediately, she runs for her camera and wants me to sit still. Why doesn’t she understand that I’m not a model in a photo shoot? I’m just having some fun and I don’t really care about pictures at that point.

Then she looks at the blurred pictures and shakes her head sadly. She is always comparing my pictures that she takes with those professional pet pictures you see in posters, greeting cards and cat books. Majestic cats gazing into the camera. No, that is not me!

It is quite challenging to get us cats to sit still. Just like children and babies.

So my human got a book on how to take photographs of your pets. Then she started telling people about what makes a pet picture really good. Apparently, the picture gives the sense of the personality of the animal.

So if I happen to be a rather calm, luxury loving, princely animal, the picture should tell all. If it’s a naughty little kitten like Joey, the little Siamese who lives across the road, then his picture must show all his naughtiness.

A good time to take our picture could be when we are playing with a toy mouse, a string, a bottle cap or any of the little things that fascinates us. We are relaxed in these moments. Remember that noises and strange sounds distract us, so does unnecessary thumping or yelling for us to pose will just ruin everything.

We are different from dogs that like to take instructions. Ask us to sit somewhere and we’ll jump off in no time. But ask a dog to sit on a stool or a high chair and he will sit until you ask him to come down. It’s the character of each animal that is unique and different from each other.

It is easy to fool us cats with treats close to the camera lens so that when we look at it, it would seem in the picture that we are looking at the camera.

Mind you, holding up food really works because I can’t help not stare at a treat, a piece of yummy cheese or a chicken bite. For one picture she rubbed food on me and Pixie, the cat who was staying over as her human was away for a few days and we were sniffing at each other which made some really nice shots.

Animals are tiny creatures and much below the eye level of humans. It is always good to take pictures right down at our level. You can really capture our sparkling eyes and twitching noses. I have tried to dodge the cell phone or camera too and the result was a picture of my paw!

Remember that we get lost on busy, printed sofa fabric. A dark cat will disappear on dark fabric so maybe a little bit of the human common sense is in order.