The other night I was browsing through a bunch of different art blogs trying to find resources for Art News posts. I came across the most adorable and amazing posts I have seen in a long time. It featured a cat named Cooper that lives with a couple of film makers from Seattle (check out their site Cross Films). What makes Cooper the cat so special? He is following in his owners’ footsteps by becoming a photographer. That’s right, Cooper wears a special camera around his collar and documents the world around him.
Cooper has been taking his own pictures for over a year now! Once a week he wears this light weight digital camera fastened to his collar, which snaps a new photo every 2 minutes.
When Cooper’s owners were asked by their local newspaper why they decided to start having their cat take pictures of the world around him they responded by saying, “We wanted to see what the cat was up to while we were gone during the day. … We were really hoping to meet some of Cooper’s friends. We wondered if he crossed the street, if he has a girlfriend on the other side of the block. Does he go into the neighbor’s yard? We had no idea he’d come back with such cool photos. We found out on the very first roll that yes, he goes into a lot of yards and streets,” Michael Cross said. “These were just beautiful shots. That’s when we realized this wasn’t just a geography experiment to see how far he goes. It became its own documentary art form.”
While there were enough gems for a few Flickr sets, thousands of photos were out of focus or dark because of Cooper’s particular behaviors — sleeping, running through yards or standing outside his house. Cooper has an infrared bauble on his collar that allows him — and only him — to have access in and out of the house through a cat door. The Crosses installed it after they realized through the photos that Cooper would wait for hours to be let in.
On December 5th he was featured in the premiere episode of the new Animal Planet show Cats 101. I missed the show since I don’t have cable, but I’m sure you can catch a repeat of it soon!
Check out Cooper’s Official Flickr set: The CAT CAM
(The first picture Cooper took with his collar camera.)
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I always knew my job would be something creative-based, though it did take me a while to figure out how to viably pay rent through being creative. I am pretty busy at it though – which has an adverse effect on my social life! Art does consume most of my waking thoughts.
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What a fantastic find!! It’s a brilliant idea attaching a camera to the cat’s collar… you’d really find out what your cat got up to when not at home!! My wouldn’t take many great photos, not only does she not go outside, but she sleeps most of the time!!! I expect Cooper sleeps alot too, just not always on a comfy cushion or on top of a cupboard.