Maine Coon Cat Portrait

Maine Coon Cat Portrait

by Michael
(London, UK)

From time to time I like to do something simple like searching for a really good picture of a cat and just talk about it. And here is a cracking picture of a Maine Coon cat. The photographer is Marie Vinje. She lives in Norway and she says, “I just found the great joy and excitement with the camera. I just love it…”

Well I can see she loves it because she takes photographs with passion.

I don’t know the cat’s name, sorry. This is a fine Maine Coon cat portrait. It is dynamic first and foremost. There is a hint of action and the cat is alert. The eyes and ears are pointing in unison towards the target, which is probably a cat tease or something similar to the photographer’s right.

The positioning of the cat is good too. The cat was moving or looking to the left and a noise or visual disturbance was made to the right so the cat turns, creating that nice movement in the body and the focus just out of frame. This is the kind of technique employed by Ken Flick when he teases cats into position for Helmi. The “beauty shot” is created physically positioning the cat so that he or she faces away from the camera, while using a cat tease to encourage the cat to look forward towards the camera. The result is a cat’s body that is fluid looking, creating a more interesting shape.

In this photo the background is burnt out. This means that it is so bright that it is off the scale to be registered as a tone of colour by the camera. I am guessing that this was achieved by increasing the contrast post production using one of the photo manipulation software packages.

The contrast is artificially high. This can sometimes look wrong but in this instance it works well. The contrast also gives a hard edge to the typical shaggy long hair of the Maine Coon cat. This gives us the gorgeous broken outline around the cat.

The whiskers are relaxed as they point downwards. This indicates that whatever is happening off camera on the right is not so interesting as to alert the cat into action mode.

This cat has Maine Coon ears. They are long and almost pointed looking because of the “lynx tips” meaning the tufts of hair at the tip of the ears that bring the ear to a point although the ear is rounded.

Tabby Maine Coons are very popular and probably the best kind. This cat has a tabby cat coat. It looks almost orange but I a guessing when I say that this might not be an accurate representation of the actual colour.

This cat looks big, solid and bold. Maine Coons are the biggest cats registered at the Cat Fanciers Association. I think that this Maine Coon cat portrait  nicely captures the essence of this cat breed, which can be stated as a cat that is solid and rugged as it comes from working cat stock, with a distinctive coat that is brought out well in this photograph.

Great photo Vinje. You are a good photographer, I say. See:

1. this image on Flickr with a black surround
2. her website (this does not contain great photos and is in Norwegian).

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