JAC: As I said, posting will be light this week, though Grania might start some discussion threads, and I expect people to PARTICIPATE! In the meantime, today is shaping up to be a cat-post day. I am in the small village of Denton, near Olney, visiting friends. Some spectacular wines on tap for dinner tonight. Matthew, though, has contributed a post
by Matthew Cobb
From one of my favourite and most eclectic Tw*tter accounts, @PulpLibrarian.
Nothing in the papers again…#MondayMotivation pic.twitter.com/785cUTufra
— Pulp Librarian (@PulpLibrarian) February 8, 2016
Walter Chandoha has been taking photos of cats for 70 years! Aged 94 he is still snapping away, and has a website where you can buy copies of his cat photos (and others). He published a book of his cat photos in 2015, and was interviewed by Wired magazine, who described him as ‘the godfather of cat photographers’. [JAC: Walter’s daughter Paula was the official photographer of the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard when I was a grad student, and she took some fine photos of gels for me.]
And now a word (or three) from our sponsor, Puss n Boots cat food:
What’s hard about photographing gels? Assuming you’ve got the camera on a tripod and the lighting set up properly – which you did last year and don’t change the set up …
Do they have to be photographed under UV light or something peculiar? (I never had to do gels myself, but I do enough rock photography to be familiar with setting up a rostrum camera.)
‘Gels’ ?
My first impression is that it was a mispronunciation of ‘gals’ or ‘girls’. The difficulties with photographing them are potentially legion, I would think.
Next thought was that it referred to photographers’ ‘gels’, or coloured filters. Also used in lighting at rock concerts. Bit of an oxymoron to be actually photographing them, though.
Or are you referring to biological, err, slimes?
cr
“Gel” in this context means electrophoresis gelatin used to separate DNA fragments by length. (Longer fragments move slower through the gel.) It’s how they used to sequence DNA back in the Paleolithic.
One of the standard techniques for genetic (and protein) analysis since … back in the 1960s? … was to separate the DNA/ RNA/ protein fragments by sizes (or sometimes acid-side-chain-count, or other chemical property) on a plate coated with a “gel” (various properties ; also powders like molecular sieve, fumed silica … with various coatings for different chemical properties) ; typically, smaller (or less affine molecules) would move across the “plate”faster, leading to separation by size (or other property). This leads to the classic “forensic prop” of a glass plate with various coloured bands of test sample(s), references, etc.
That plate is a “gel.”
Photographing them, I suspect, may involve (1) accurate scaling (not hard, use internal standards) ; (2) exotic staining (proteins and *NA are typically colourless) ; (3) illumination under UV (many proteins, and some stains, fluoresce).
I’ve had to do no few thousands of technical photographs of rocks, including under UV. Tedious, but not particularly difficult. Getting the METAdata into the photograph, and getting people to actually read and use the METAdata is a bigger struggle.
re “ … … shaping up to be a cat post – day” and ” … … and I expect people to PARTICIPATE,” I have squat to offer re photography or cat food; but this information about kitty cpr – chest compressions and – resuscitation may be helpful to some: firefighters in Midwest City, Oklahoma, last Friday, 05 February 2016, saved a kitty and her companion chihuahua.
Ms Kitty, actually named Lucky — yeah ! — had respirations, more like gasps, down to only 3 per minute ! when the firefighters with no one home at the time of its fire and apparently trained to search there, found both animals underneath a bed. Using a human – styled mask and chest massage and even though, she may have been hypoxic for upwards of 10 to 12 minutes’ time, the fighters were able to bring her back — and, likely, with little to no brain damage due to her overall small mammalian size. The chihuahua was not as severely affected.
Her story here: http://www.facebook.com/LacieLowryNews9/videos/1092129080831992 and http://www.news9.com/story/31152007/mwc-firefighters-bring-cat-back-to-life within which is this terrible statistic, “An estimated 40,000 pets die each year due to smoke inhalation.”
These rescuing folks happen to also have, just recently procured to them, an oxygenation – conveyance specially designed for trying to resuscitate small animals. A pictured example here: http://www.nola.com/traffic/index.ssf/2015/07/firefighters_rescue_cat_oxygen.html
Blue
Should I presume that those PinB cans were liberally sprayed with essence of catnip?
My other half is the head staff member on food for the cats, I only dish it out as directed.
Fancy Feast seems to be preferred in the can type, although Emma, the indoor cat must have a Urinary Care, Hills prescription diet can food.
The dry is Purina Cat Chow Naturals and 9 lives. Pretty exciting stuff, eh.
Right now I am toying with thoughts of commercial cat food with more exciting and species appropriate names like: ‘Warm Dead Mouse’, or ‘The Early Bird’.
Dr. Ballard’s cat food was the brand we gave my childhood cat in the ’70s. I think that and PnB were the only choices then compared with the gazillion brands now.
On Walter Chandoha’s website I especially like the black and white cat photos. 🙂
In his younger years, Bashar al-Assad was a well-known cat photographer. However, it was his transition into porn that lost him the Puss ‘n’ Boots franchise.
And he was the world’s most famous one as well!
From the ad: “DOs and DON’Ts can save you dollars on wasted shots”.
Of course, that was in pre-digital days, when clicking the shutter actually cost significant money.
(By the way – admission – I almost snarked about the misplaced apostrophe in DON’Ts – but it’s correct. Trying to add a possessive apostrophe – DON’T’s – would probably be a mistake.)
cr