On Taking Pictures of My Cat

An Instagram tale

I used to photograph things that I thought had aesthetic value; now I mostly take pictures of my cat.

The long version: I was a late bloomer when it came to social media. It took me until 2016, my senior year of undergrad, to join Instagram. I was and am not a frequent poster, but in those early days I enjoyed well enough adding pictures for my friends and family to see and browsing theirs in turn (these were the days when the algorithm still showed you mainly content from accounts you followed and not an endless stream of “suggested posts” and ads). Less than a year later, when I moved across the country, far from my familiar home and friends, I also appreciated the occasional mote of attention signified by a “like” on my posts. It helped me to feel a little less lonely, like I was on an adventure living in a new city, Philadelphia, and like everyone believed I was doing OK.

I also enjoyed cultivating the impression that I, unlike my perceived normal denizen of the platform, was an aesthete. No pictures of elegant breakfasts or posed selfies on my account! No, I was only interested in beauty for its own sake! Beauty I discovered and framed for the enrichment of my audience. Pretensions aside, I really was having fun, though. While we may justifiably look askance at what Instagram and social media have become and how they shape our self-perception, having some outlet for sharing and documenting the what-ever-it-is that you want to photograph, dinners with friends or pretty sights you chance upon, has obvious value. I still like the pictures I took.

(I took, really, a lot of pictures of sunsets. But who doesn’t love a juicy, vivid orange?)

Then, cat happened.

In the summer of 2020, during the first wave of the Coronavirus pandemic while I was hunkering down at home in Oregon, my sister opted to foster a litter of kittens. Five in total, she named them after figures from Beatles songs, Eleanor, Julia, Jo-Jo, Lucy, and Father McKenzie, Fat Mac for short. (Their mother, dear Prudence, was also our guest for a time, but after her babies were weaned she was called to serve as a foster mother herself for two other motherless kittens.)

Now kittens, you may know, are quite visually pleasing to humans, and the human population was in dire need of emotional relief at this time. Let it not be said I hid my kittens under a bushel. I took more pictures of the Beatles batch in a couple of months than I had of sunsets over my entire life, dutifully sharing them with the downtrodden, kitten-less population.

While I have never been a person who is quick to commit herself to things, and I reassured myself that, if I wanted a cat, there were many adoptable companions already back in Philly, one kitten in this litter became my new muse. Lucy, the calico (and soon the smallest of the litter after former runt Jo-Jo ate and played his way to impressive gains), knew how to find her light.

More importantly than her clear editorial potential, Lucy was becoming my buddy. My strength soon failed me; I set aside my more rational cat-acquisition strategies and resolved to bring Lucy with me back East.

Perhaps nothing has really gone back to normal in the wake of Covid (or, are we even in the “wake” yet?), but certainly my photographic habits did not. My phone’s photo album is, no lie, almost entirely cat pictures and so is my Instagram. On that platform, which is more sparse and curated, the transition from pre- to post-cat Kristen is the most starkly portrayed. It’s not just the photos. I probably also talk about my cat too much. But when I look at my timeline, I sometimes wonder, “Did I used to be more interesting?”

I don’t wish to mislead anyone. I am too satisfied with my new crazy cat lady lifestyle to be actually concerned about this shift. And in fairness to myself, as a subject, Lucy has many modes to capture:

Inviting, shrewd, enigmatic, asleep, surveillant, asleep, impish, angelic, and sleeping.

However, looking over my catalogue of Lucy pictures, on and off of the ‘Gram, I have started to reflect on another matter that my new preoccupation throws into relief. I was never in my old pictures and I am still mostly not, but by merit of being actually in my life, living in my house and around all of my things, Lucy turned my camera onto the actual, incidental, accidental stuff of my world. I know; I should tidy up.

Again, I don’t want to overstate anything, but I sometimes feel a twinge of self-consciousness looking at, say, a pile of worn shirts I should have chucked in the laundry or boxes I should have recycled weeks ago. I once sent my sister this picture:

To which she responded, “Is there a sad little plant on your landing?” Yes. My aunt gave me that. I murdered it slowly through either neglect or over-watering. (Feel free not to weigh in with a diagnosis. It is already too late.) Indeed, I had always hesitated to commit to a pet before because I worried about my capacity to adequately care for one. Luckily, my cat is an easy keeper, who is, moreover, showered with toys, treats, and regular vet appointments.

Still, I am anxious seeing myself, even peripherally in the detritus I leave behind, and my main strategy for dealing with anxiety is avoidance.

So, about those selfies, or lack thereof.

Look, I think I’m pretty, OK? Or I am too evolved to care. Pick whichever strikes you as less controversial. This isn’t about that, I super promise. I don’t need an infusion of those inspirational Dove ads. I’m fine.

But I feel, as I am sure do many, stilted posing for a picture. Every second I’m waiting for the flash, I’m thinking, “Is this how you smile? I’m doing it, right?” My efforts have returned mixed results. This is the central conflict of a platform like Instagram, though, isn’t it. We avow that we are trying to capture real life, “one for the memory books,” but we all understand innately that any “realness” is necessarily layered beneath some performance, even one as shallow as putting on a smile.

The paradox isn’t even just endemic to social media, but to photography more generally. Candid shots aside, whenever we prepare to capture a human subject, the spontaneity of whatever moment inspired the picture is lost. I should know; how many cute Lucy photos have I missed because she moved on from her current activity or position faster than I could draw and shoot? Hence, my prolific portfolio of Lucy Sleeping photos.

So, I avoid being in front of the camera whenever possible. Much easier to be behind it, pointing it at a cute fuzzball, trying my best to frame out the piles of stuff I have lying around. But, even if they are stilted, those shots of us with friends and family and even those godawful, self-promoting, millennial, [buzzword], selfies, we take them for a reason. “You’ll want them when you’re ninety,” my friend tells me. There is a chance she may be right, that I won’t remember so much the awkwardness of taking the photo, but the experience of being where I was in life now.

Last Christmas, I decided that I would gift my mother a framed photograph of myself and Lucy, for the memories and because I knew she would prefer it to another woolen article of clothing. When asked, she always declares that all she wants is to spend time with her kids. So hey, here’s some me, mom. My cousin who owns an actual camera came over. I put on a nice sweater. Lucy participated ambivalently. What’s the saying about herding cats? That it’s super easy?

Many, many photos were taken of me and she that evening, some of them printable. Here’s to those memories, staged and captured, to my family and friends who want me in their pictures, and for my first blog post, Lucy, here’s to you. You may not make me more comfortable being photographed, but you make it easier to smile.