Some pictures and thoughts, end of February 2024

So it’s a leap year again, and today is the leap day. Cool for those who are born on that day, they don’t age that fast 😉 Anyway, here are some photos of our cat, in the order that I took them during the month:

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In other news, this month was also my birthday. And I’ve got a nice surprise present: the latest novel from Haruki Murakami. Cool; many thanks again! It’s wonderful like most of his work.

And since I have more or less everything I need, I didn’t have a real wish list – but also got a Raspberry Pi 5 which I used to set up with a Pi-Hole DNS sink / ad blocker / tracker blocker and a Wireguard PiVPN for the family already. The load (like in top) with that software installed and running is still 0-0-0, which means the machine is just yawning about these tasks, let’s see what else we can do with it. Cool little machine, the CPU is an ARM one like in your typical mobile phone (but 4 cores instead of 8 or more).

Also got the latest updates of Gadgetbridge on my phone which keeps getting better and better together with Xiaomi’s Smart Band 8.

Anyway, and as always, thanks for reading and viewing.

A photographer and his cat, end of January 2024

Two days ago I took a “selfie” again, using one of my studio strobes and converting the image with a Kodak Tri-X film simulation in Silver Efex:

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And today I took a photo of Bella while she was outside on the fence (in front of a Kindergarten). This one I converted using an Ilford HP5 film simulation in RawTherapee:

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So there you have it – two recent pictures of the cat and myself, both in black & white. Like always, thanks for viewing.

3 months of Bella today…

As of today, our little Bella is with us since three months exactly. And each day, she tells me/us: “Let me out, let me out!”:

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Let me out let me out, Mörfelden-Walldorf 2023

And sometimes in November, when the weather was too bad, she’d gotten the “November Blues”:

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November Blues, Mörfelden-Walldorf 2023

In the evenings, just as right now as well, she’s waiting for Mitchie and Zuleikha to come home from work, like this:

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White cat on white sheet, Mörfelden-Walldorf 2023

There are times tho when we can’t let her out – the neighbours’ cats don’t like her that much, and now Bella got really protective about her home as well:

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Bella says “no”, Mörfelden-Walldorf 2023

In that case, I try to play with her – although she’s really watching the veranda door then:

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Bella, Mörfelden-Walldorf 2023

At the moment, like I wrote above, she’s sleeping. But a while ago we both sat on the sofa – I wanted to read a bit, and she came behind me. So here’s a selfie from my phone:

Selfie with human, Mörfelden-Walldorf 2023

It’s wonderful to have her around… <3

And like always, thanks for viewing, and for reading.

Happy birthday Bella

Today is Bella’s second birthday. We took a few photos, and Zuleikha made a collage of some of them:

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Bella on her second birthday, Mörfelden-Walldorf 2023

I took the first one using my compact flash bounced over the ceiling, two of the collage were made with a studio strobe, and one with Zuleikha’s mobile phone with the normal room light on.

And like always, thanks for viewing.

Another Caturday, after ~ 6.5 weeks

We’re letting Bella out since 10 days, and she is making good use of it, going up to 5.5 hours exploring her new home, garden, and surroundings. And then she normally comes home to rest. I take pictures when I see something, like this one for instance which I took using my phone:

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Or this one with my camera:

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It’s a joy having her with us, and I’m always glad when she comes back.

Caturday

Here are some more photos of Bella since last Purrsday:

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Bella Рa cat that fits into a phone case, M̦rfelden-Walldorf 2023
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Like always, thanks for viewing.

Five weeks – and freedom, finally ;)

Today it has been 35 days or 5 weeks since we’ve brought Bella to our home. And according to the suggestions, if you move a cat, keep her in for 4-6 weeks to get accomodated to the new home, or else she could head out just to search for the old one. So we agreed on 5 weeks, meaning: today.

Here are some photos since last week, and from today:

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Zuleikha also made a nice collage with her phone, which she sent me with Signal lately:

Here’s one from this morning, looking out at the dimly lit dining area/window:

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Later, Bella slept a bit (or recharged, like babies do?):

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And finally, while us humans were hanging the laundry: freedom! Yay!

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She hasn’t been out for too long this first time, so let’s see how she’ll do during the next days. So much to explore…

… and like always, thanks for viewing.

Four weeks of Bella…

… and she’s really sweet.

I started playing around with an older lens from the film camera, meaning I had to manually focus it. And since thinking “film”, I cropped this one into a 3:2 format and used Color Efex Pro (on Windows) to simulate a Fujichrome Provia 400F film:

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On this one – also with same same OM Zuiko 50mm/1.8 lens manually focused at f/1.8, she seems to see me as prey:

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I also took this one using my phone yesterday evening while we’ve had a visitor:

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And finally, one from today – back to my Panasonic Leica DG 25mm/1.4 “normal” lens (and with autofocus):

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And like always, thanks for viewing.