The subject naturally divides itself into two branches - the commercial and the artistic. By the "commercial" I mean all photographs taken with the special aim of showing the shape and points of the cat from the fancier's, owner's, or purchaser's point of view. In the "artistic," I include all those pictures where the cat is used as a model only.

In either kind of work almost any sort of camera and lens will do, providing it will yield a fair definition and admit of rapid exposures. If one possesses a portrait lens all the better. At all events use a lens which will give you good definition at a large aperture. A good make of roller-blind shutter is an important accessory, with a sufficient length of tubing to the pneumatic release to enable one to move about freely while holding the ball and to get close to the cats while making either time or instantaneous exposures. The camera stand should be very firm and rigid.

I like best to work in the open air, my studio being the small open run of my cattery. If the light is too direct or strong I diffuse it by stretching light blue art muslin curtains above the table or stand upon which the cats are arranged. These curtains run with rings upon cords stretched from the boundary walls on each side so that they may be moved in any way the lighting may require. For background a dark plush curtain will be found useful. Avoid figured backgrounds, as they detract from the value and crispness of the cats and accessories [props]. An example of what I mean will be seen in my picture on page 158 of the present work ["Fur and Feather" photo], where the feathers in the hat, one of the motives of the composition, are almost lost in the scrolls of curtain used for background.

Three things are absolutely necessary to successful photography of cats for either commercial or artistic purpose - time, patience, and an unlimited number of good quick plates. Of all animals the cat is possibly the most unsatisfactory sitter should we attempt by force to secure the pose we desire. By coaxing we can generally get what we wish. Patience is the keynote of success. Before commencing, make up your mind as to what points you wish to show; then pose your cat gently and wait patiently until the pose becomes easy. She may jump down or take a wrong pose or go to sleep a dozen times or more, but never mind, give plenty of time. It is here where patience tells. Wait and coax until you see just what you desire, then release the shutter and make the exposure. At this point never hesitate or think twice - especially with kittens - or the desired pose may be gone, and will possibly cost you hours of waiting again to secure it.

Before photographing a cat for its general appearance or for any special points, it is essential to have it thoroughly groomed and got up as carefully as for show. Speaking generally, the coat of a long-haired cat should never be roughened; it altogether spoils the shape of the animal, and does not in any way improve the appearance of length, quality, or texture of the coat. In all cats where their markings are one of the chief points - such as tabbies and tortoiseshells, etc - this roughening should be specially avoided. There is, possibly, one exception to this advice, and that is in the case of smokes, where it may be, and sometimes is, desirable to turn back a small patch of the fur to show the quality and purity of the silver under-coat. In such cases, the turning back must be done only for this purpose, and in such a natural way as not to interfere with the general flow of the fur of the shape of the cat. In posing a cat, it is well to remember its faults as well as its good points, so that the former may be hidden as much as possible and the latter displayed to the best advantage.

Let us take this somewhat extreme example: A friend has a domestic pet - a so-called Persian, but with weasel head, long back legs and tail, large ears, small eyes, short coat, but some slight pretence to a frill. What can we do? To take him in profile will result in a very sorry caricature of the noble Persian; so we coax pussy to bend her back by sitting on her hind legs, and so partly hiding them as well as apparently shortening her back, inducing her also to curl her long and scanty tail round her feet. We brush out the ear tufts, if she has any, and press up the fur at the base of the ears, for this will tend to make them look smaller. Having placed the camera well in front of and nearly on a level with the cat, so as to foreshorten the nose and head, while showing what frill there is, a sharp squeaking sound will make pussy open her eyes to their full extent; we press the ball, the exposure is made, and we have secured a fairly presentable photograph of our friend's perchance charming pet, yet most indifferent Persian cat.

A few good examples of cats taken for the purpose of showing points should prove useful, and many such examples can be found in this present work on the cat - for instance: p. 29, "Litter of Siamese Kittens"; p. 100, "Champion Jimmy"; p. 138, "Star Duvals"; p. 139, "Omar"; p. 145, "A Perfect Chinchilla"; and p. 150, "Dossie." With these examples and the many others that are to be found scattered through the pages of "The Book of the Cat," the would-be photographer of the cat for show points should have little difficulty in setting up a standard to work to, and by patience and perseverance succeed in attaining it.

Turning now to the more artistic side of cat photography, we find our real difficulties begin, for in photographing for the showing of points we seldom have to deal with more than one cat at a time. It is when we attempt deliberately to pose two or more cats or kittens, to carry out a preconceived idea, that our real troubles begin, and also that the patient skill of the amateur wins its best reward. Looking through the plates of "The Book of the Cat," we find many examples of how the cat should be used in picture making. The reproductions of Madame Ronner's charming pictures show how they may be handled with palette and brush; but, alas! here we photographers labour under an immense disadvantage. However artistic our taste, however good and pretty our intended composition may be, we cannot, as the artist with pencils and brushes can, make individual sketches of pussies in the different positions needed and bring them together in the finished picture. Whether we use two or more cats, they must each be kind enough to take the pose we desire simultaneously; hence our greater difficulty. However, the illustrations on pages 1, 37, 49, 88, 128, 199, and many others indicate the wide field open to the photographer with a little taste and vast patience. In this class of photography it is of no use to go to work in a haphazard fashion, snap-shotting our cats in all kinds of positions, trusting to mere luck to yield something worth keeping; then to give sounding title to it, and so hope to make a picture. Accident does occasionally present us with something worth having, but far more often it offers us results only fit for the waste-paper basket.

Before commencing, be sure you have an idea to work out in your picture, and of the lines you hope to follow in giving expression. If possible, make a rough sketch - no matter how rough - of this idea, showing the position not only of the cats, but also of the accessories needed. Be careful to keep the composition simple and not to overcrowd it. This sketch will greatly assist you in arranging your picture and posing your cats. Before you attempt to pose the cats it is absolutely necessary that all accessories should be fixed so that they cannot be knocked over, or the cats will get frightened and be useless as sitters for a long time to come. That cats are nervous should never be forgotten, and any chance of startling them strictly guarded against. When your background, table, and accessories are all in their place, put your camera in position, arrange the picture on the ground-glass, and see that you get all well within the size of the plate; it is safer to have the picture on the ground-glass a little smaller than the plate will allow, as if one tries to get it to its utmost size, one may find in developing that one of the models has moved back on the table an inch more, perhaps, than calculated upon, and as a result have half a cat on one side instead of a whole one. The background, however, should be large enough to fully cover the ground-glass. Focus the foreground and nearer accessories, stop down to F8, set the shutter to about one-thirtieth to one fiftieth of a second (according to light and nature of subject), insert the slide containing the rapid plate, draw the flap under the dark cloth, and if at all windy tie this last to the camera. Now you are ready for the cats and a suitable moment of light.

As I have already remarked, I do my photographing out of doors. I therefore choose a bright warm day, when there are plenty of fleecy clouds about; so that by taking advantage of their position in front of the sun, and by the help afforded by my muslin curtains, I am able to modify the harsh contrasts incidental to working in broad daylight.

"The Artist" (page 128) was, perhaps, one of the most difficult subjects I have attempted. Without apparent life and go such a subject would be worthless. The rough sketch of the cat in the basket was first prepared, and the brush attached to it in such a manner that it would move freely up and down for about an inch or so; then it and the rest of the accessories were firmly arranged upon the table. The cat in the basket was then made to take her place, but keep in she would not; as soon as the brush moved to attract the artist paw, out she would jump; so for the time she was allowed to run until the artist was posed and an endeavour made to infuse life into him by moving the brush. But it was "no go"; sit down he would until the introduction of a feather woke him up. His companion was then slipped into the basket; but alas! success was not yet. For about two hours we had to begin over and over again, when at last the pose of both kittens was obtained simultaneously and the picture taken in one fiftieth of a second. Such a subject with the kitten tamely sitting at the handle of the brush would not in any way have realised my intention.

I must again point out the great convenience, especially in this class of work, of the extra length of tubing, which allows you, while holding the release in one hand, to pose your models with the other, and then expose without the fatal loss of time that would be entailed by having to step back to the camera or by giving the word to an assistant.

A subject suggestive of a picture will often turn up when least expected and, at the time, impossible to take. I always make a note of these and they come as a basis for future use and to be worked out at leisure. "Thieves" (page 70) was suggested by noting the fondness of two of my kittens for melon, "Amateur Photographers" by a group of kittens playing round some photo frames put out to print, and "Mischief" (page 88) by a frolicsome kitten overturning a small bottle of ink and playing with the little black pool.

Isochromatic plates should be used in all cases where there are mixed colours in the cats' furs, as in tortoiseshells, brown tabbies, etc; mixtures of red, black, and yellow cannot be truly rendered with ordinary plates. The only extra precaution necessary in their use is absolute freedom from actinic light in the dark room. Double ruby glass in the window, or if artificial light is used, an extra thickness of red tissue paper round the developing lamp, will answer this purpose and make everything safe. With this little extra care, nice crisp negatives are obtained, while the relative value of the red, yellow, and black seen in our furry friends are well defined in the resulting picture.

Cats used as models should, if possible, be in the pink of condition - the prettier the model the more pleasant the picture. The best time to photograph a cat is about one hour after a light meal. Immediately after a meal most cats want to wash and sleep. A hungry cat or kittens makes the worst of sitters; its thoughts are too much turned towards the inner man. Never overtax your cats, give them plenty of rest during a sitting, and never lose your temper and attempt to force to secure a pose; it only frightens the cats, and can never result in satisfactory work. Time and patience should always in the end achieve what you desire.

Artistic photography having been for some years a pleasant and recreative hobby with me, I can assure my friends who keep cats for pleasure, and those who find pleasure in the camera, that by uniting the two hobbies they will discover a field of enjoyment and artistic possibilities which neither pursuit alone can afford. To all such the preceding notes are offered as humble finger-posts, indicating rather than assuring the road to success.

PHOTOGRAPHIC POSTCARDS

One way in which early photographers subsidised their photography was to turn their photos into picture postcards. The newly invented Kodak process captured the images on celluloid (making life much easier for photogrpahers such as Lucy Clarke). It was now possible to take snapshots as well as carefully staged images. Edwardian photographic studios not only produced picture postcards, they could profit from the new process by copying amateur snapshots into postcards, calling cards and business cards. These cards were not only functional, they were highly collectable.

Calling cards were highly popular in a day and age when people had "at home" mornings or afternoons where they received guests. Exchanging calling cars was an essential part of the social event. Picture postcards were also popular in a day and age when you couldn't simply phone a friend. Many cards were released in sets or series to appeal to collectors.

The new process meant that it had become astonishingly cheap to produce photographic cards. Around 1905, the early mail-order firm Barker’s of Kensington, an early mail-order firm, would 144 photographic postcards from the same negative for 11 shillings (less than one old penny per card). According to the Barker's advertising, this rate "afforded a splendid advertising proposition for business men and for boarding house proprietors."

Professional cat breeders also used the photographic cards to publicise their stock. They no longer had to rely on wordy descriptions, they could afford to give away photos in the hope of recouping the cost when the photographic subject was sold. It was easy to give out cards to prospective purchasers. One such card was sent to a Mrs Challis of Clatterford Hall, Ongar, Essex (many fanciers were well off and had impressive addresses). The picture is "Black Knight", a winner of six championships and the message was "Are you still considering black kitten to breed from? I may part with my last one. It is a good one, but not very cheap, having lately gained a Reserve.".

Owners could send cards of their prize-winning, or simply pretty, cats to their friends. A picture postcard posted from Haywards Heath, West Sussex, in 1910, bore the photographic subject's proud owner's message "My 'White Coral' 1st Prize." Another was sent in 1906 from Birmingham to a friend in Malvern, Worcestershire. The card was a photo of her Persian cat, Miss Marcooli, and the sender offered to send further prints for the friend to sell on at a profit. "If you have six they will be 3/6 [three shillings and sixpence], and you can have twelve for 4/6. Can you do with that many? We can get them thro’ by the 26th."

No animal has been more studied for pictorial purposes than the cat; and the study has not yet been exhausted, as is patent to every artist who falls under the charm of puss. Who has ever sat before her with a pencil for half an hour and has not seen her in graceful shapes that no artist has perpetuated? Who yet has suggested her marvellous sinuosity, or has expressed all that is sinister about her, or mysterious, or has caught her occasional vivacity? Her moods are without number; and how absolutely she changes in appearance with any different mood! Sometimes she seems to be built on a structure of wool; a moment later she might be composed of india-rubber; at another time her movements seem to be directed by springs of steel. But whether lively or somnolent, she never fails to conduct herself with a grace that belongs neither to human beings nor to any other creature in the animal world.

Even in her most quiescent state the cat is a difficult animal to record either with brush or pencil. All her forms are subtle: about her soft fur you see the positive indication of no muscles; only a faint movement here and there, like the tremor on the surface of water when a fish passes far below, suggests, only suggests, the shape of the body beneath the skin. Nor is puss ever a very helpful model, Like the true actor that she is, she is willing to be observed at times when the performance under scrutiny is entirely of her own direction. But let a cat imagine for one moment that she is under some sort of compulsion, and very speedily she will let you know who is master. If one wishes her to lap milk, and provides her with the means of doing so, she will sit up and wash herself; if one wishes her to wash herself, she will chase her tail; if it is a sleeping attitude that one is studying, she will scamper off. No sort of training, or affection, or love of good food, will turn the cat into a proper assistant to an artist. Neither will any sort of compulsion. A horse, a cow, or a dog can be held in an attitude that will best give to the artist a great deal of information; but an unwilling cat in the grasp of a human being is about as well worth studying as a few leaves would be to one who would paint a tree.

But these difficulties in picturing the cat are perhaps not without their charm. Moreover, they produce very interesting results. To arrive at any estimate of the cat’s form is a very slow process, and while that knowledge is being obtained, a great deal else has been picked up. The artist has had ample opportunities of pondering over cat nature, and so most representations of her are marked with the artist’s own individuality. Scarcely two artists of repute have given the same account of this strange animal. Their representations have not differed only in the matter of technic and artistic vision. To each person puss has appeared as a different sort of being. Some have been struck by this characteristic, some by that. Some find her just the "harmless, necessary cat"; some a noisome thing that should be of the underworld. There are artists who find her only amusing, and make laughable pictures out of her. Some look upon her and paint her as a ball of fur; while others are overwhelmed by her mystery, and consider that she should be studied and drawn as reverently as the Sphinx.

The cat has never been taken more seriously than by Egyptian artists; indeed, their bronzes are things at which to wonder. It is true that it is at first rather hard to reconcile the Egyptian interpretation of the cat’s shape with our knowledge of her form. In many such bronzes that I have seen the legs are as long as a greyhound’s, and the head is very small. But it is not unlikely that the early cat was of a different make from ours. The Egyptians used theirs for sporting purposes, sending them into the water to dive for fish, or to hunt and carry fowl. Neither of these things would or could our cats do. Our cats can hunt birds, but birds of the smaller kind; and the cat that would hunt at all for anybody but itself is unknown to me. This all proves that the Egyptian cat was of more substantial build than ours; possibly, therefore, in the matter of shape, the Egyptian artists’ version of the cat was just as realistic as anything we have done.

Although the shape of the Egyptian bronze puss may be accepted only with some question, all the rest can be regarded with solemn admiration. I have before me a little cat-head that came from Egypt; I believe there are hundreds of such specimens. This little head it is impossible to take up with any hurry, or to put down again without reverence, without considerable ceremony. Its expression is completely awesome. In its eyes there is a knowledge of mysteries of which we know nothing. That cat wears the look of all-wisdom, and yet its expression is in no way exaggerated, is in no way uncatlike. I have seen cats sitting before the fire and having in their eyes just what that little bronze cat has; and then I have understood why the Egyptians found in this animal something that was beyond the human being - at all events, beyond his knowledge, and why they worshiped it.

I have dwelt upon these ancient Egyptian realizations of the cat because I believe that, wonderful as are M. Steinlen’s interpretations of the animal, there is no modern, or comparatively modern artist, who, in his studies of the creature, has arrived at anything like so subtle a representation as the Egyptians. Of the cats drawn and sculptured at a later date, I think that we need take little account. She had then sunk from her high estate, and whatever pictures there are of her prove that she was little considered.

After this dark period, the first important studies of the cat were made by a Swiss, Gottfried Mind. He obtained the name of "The Raphael of Cats," and undoubtedly made studies of the animal that were different from anything that had been done before. He observed some of their characteristic actions, and set those down with considerable fidelity. His cats seem to me to be wanting in majesty; though they must have possessed, at the time of their making, an entirely novel realism. I have seen a drawing of his of a lot of cats in a room that is full of strongly realised attitudes. Delacroix and Gérieault were the next really artistic interpreters of puss. In the drawings of both these artists it is the savage in the cat that is particularly emphasised. In all of them there is something of the panther; but there is that, too, in the domestic cat. There is a story of a man who watched from a tree his friend being torn to pieces by a tiger, and he was all the time reminded of a cat gambolling with a mouse. With this evidence can any artist be accused of exaggerating the more cruel, but what to him may be the more fascinating, characteristics of a cat? We cannot all love puss merely because "her coat is so warm." Delacroix undoubtedly preferred puss when she was not in a fireside mood: and how we profit by his preference! Of all the lithographs at South Kensington, there is nothing more full of nervous energy, nothing that takes a more complete grip on the spectator, than Delacroix’s study of a lion eating a horse. This intimacy with feline character could never have been obtained by means of casual observations through the bars of a menagerie.

Possibly at the same time that Delacroix was making his wonderful studies of cats in France, drawings conceived in an almost equally energetic spirit were being done in Japan. I refer to the Hokusai cat pictures. Some of these presentments of puss may appear a little unfamiliar at first sight, or, at any rate, to Europeans. For one thing, we are used to cats with tails; Hokusai’s usually have none. In many other points, too, the cats of the Japanese artists differ from those that we see about us; but in expression, in action, they are the same, unaccustomed though their form may be to us, and every line is impregnated with the true spirit of the cat. It is like meeting a friend in a new sort of costume: the surprise once over, we wonder that he was even momentarily unrecognised. Many other Japanese have painted and drawn the cat, and they have perpetuated her in bronze and made exquisite little carved ivories of her.

Before coming to our own time it is necessary to mention one or two others who represented the cat sympathetically and truthfully. Statuesque pictures, mostly etchings, have been made of her by Lancon; and there is a weird design of two cats by Manet, both excellent in character, on a house-roof; while an English painter, Burbank, better known in France than here, has shown in his pictures of cats a remarkable intimacy with the animal.

At the present time the cat is being drawn, engraved, etched, painted, and sculptured by a number of capable artists. And puss herself occupies a place in our houses such as her forbears, with very few exceptions, could never have dreamed of. Certainly a few people of considerable mind have always known how to treat her with honour. It is, perhaps, hardly necessary to repeat the ancient story of Mohammed - how, rising from his seat and fearful of awakening the cat that was sleeping on his sleeve, he cut off that part of his garment, and left her undisturbed. Richelieu, also, found pleasure and relief in the society of cats, yet he can be regarded as only incompletely a cat-lover. As kittens they appealed to him, and as kittens only. He loved to keep a family of them in his study until they arrived at a certain age; but when they were three months old he had then taken away, and replaced by others that were younger. Moncrieff also loved cats, and wrote about them, as did Baudelaire; and Hoffmann, and Gautier, and Edgar Allan Poe. But with the more ordinary specimen of humanity the cat was tolerated only "in her right place," which was the kitchen, the coal-hole, or perhaps the barn or stable. Now she is found everywhere - before the fire, or wherever there is warmth and comfort and seclusion.

Of our present-day depictors of puss, Mme Ronner certainly is the most popular. To the vast majority she is the only cat painter. In France, Lambert may be a rival of hers; but outside France Lambert is hardly known, while Mme Ronner’s reputation has spread all over the world. All that her animals have to tell one, one knows very soon, which is undoubtedly one reason for their popularity. They are not, indeed, very individual visions of puss, but just puss as she appears to the most casual observer. What everybody knows about the cat is always in her pictures. Their fur is accurately delineated; their actions are always familiar ones, though they are not statuesque like those of the Egyptians, or so well observed in attitude as Mind’s, or so full of a savage beauty as Delacroix’s. They are pictures of puss as she appears to ninety-nine people out of a hundred: something very soft and furry, a suitable animal to sit by the fireside, and, when young, to gambol on the floor; an animal that simply eats and drinks and purrs; it is not a creature with a past; it has no weird poetry; it besets us with no problems; it has nothing in common with mankind; it is not a particularly sensuous animal, or a capricious one, or a brutal one. It would never have found in Richelieu a sympathetic companion, or suggested a weird story to Edgar Allan Poe. She has pictured puss for comfortable old ladies, for rather unimaginative younger ones, but, above all, for the nursery. And just as pretty presentments of puss as Mme Ronner’s have been done by M. Lambert.

Although the cat is to be seen in no great abundance in France, it is astonishing how many French artists have been among her devotees; and of these artists there have been some, at least, who have added enormously to our knowledge of the cat. Who can read Pierre Loti’s "Story of Pity and Death" and not feel that the cat has become to him something that it never was before? Who can look at the drawings of M. Steinlen, or the bronzes of M. Frémiet, without having not only a great joy in the art of these productions, but a new insight into the nature of the most suggestive animal of all creation? Take M. Steinlen’s best known poster. Were cats ever drawn more full of the essence of puss than the three grimalkins that wait on the little red-coated lady, holding the cup of milk? They are so lithe, so superb in action, and in expression how insinuating and entirely cat-like! In a more recently published book, M. Steinlen has given us not only insinuating cats, but cats in all sorts of moods and dilemmas. All these are remarkably humorous, and at the same time presentments of puss that never differ from reality.

Perhaps the most dignified of M. Frémiet’s cat bronzes - and it is extraordinarily dignified - is the little animal sitting very upright with a frill around its neck. The back of this cat is splendidly constructed; and as to the expression of the little figure, no artist has given with more cunning the fireside aspect of rather an irritable cat. A more sinister aspect of the animal is shown us by M. Frémiet in a bronze of somewhat larger size. Before this cat lie the mangled and half-eaten remains of one of its own young; while another, apparently blind, with fumbling kitten steps is making its escape.

Of recent years there has not been in England much cat-painting, or cat-painting of good quality. Some years ago I remember that a Mr. Couldery exhibited some tabbies at the Academy that seemed to me to be by no means wanting in realism. These canvases, I believe, had the approval of Ruskin. Since then Mr. Louis Wain has often made us laugh by his drawings of cats occupied after the manner of human beings. But his pictures can scarcely be reckoned with those that I have already mentioned. Perhaps the best cat pictures of all that have been done in England in recent years came from a lady, Mrs. W. Chance.

But it is undoubtedly to the French artists and to the Japanese that we are indebted for the finest representations of the cat. They have understood the poetry of puss; have delighted in all the strange rhythmic beauties of her body; have sympathised with her more subtle moods; have, in fact, proved the truth of an old saying, that no one can properly appreciate a cat unless he has in himself, at all events, a little something that is feline.