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A Cat Meme Photographer from a Century Ago
- barking 8y agoDoesn't look like those cats were having a good time
- mirimir 8y agoTrue. But at least they were still alive.
- sverige 8y agoThey seem pretty content to me -- no snarling or hissing, no hair standing on end. I'll bet he was nice to the kitties and they didn't mind.
- kowdermeister 8y agoor alive at all :)
- tokai 8y agoIf you look at their fur patterns, you can see that the same cats are used in different pictures. There is subtle differences in the same cats facials frowns that wouldn't be there if it was dead.
- kowdermeister 8y agoI was joking, but they might be in fact highly sedated.
- tokai 8y agoYeah that might be. On some of the pictures it looks like the cats are focused on the same thing off behind the camera. Some cats can be really mellow. Maybe they were trained to stay still for a delicious treat? One can hope. I remember an article about modern animal photographers that uses fishing line to bind dead or live animals in surprising positions. The things people do for money.
- vnorilo 8y agoI thought so too, especially while they were being put into those costumes. Who would have thought that Photoshop would contribute (a tiny bit) to reduce animal suffering? :)
- slfnflctd 8y agoThis was my first thought. I was strongly suspecting at least some use of taxidermy, especially for the paws. However, the photographer apparently had other means: > Frees admitted to using very stiff clothing as well as needles and forks to hold his subjects in place. So he claimed that they weren't hurt, but they certainly were forced into those positions. I'm going to go with no, they weren't having a good time. Given the time, though, it could have been worse.
- stewbrew 8y agoInteresting. My first impression was that only the heads were real (looking through some kind of curtain) and that the paws were stuffed.
- codetrotter 8y agoI don’t think they qualify as memes to be honest. For a lot of people “meme” is synonymous with just “funny picture” it seems, but a real meme is something more than just a funny picture. I think Wikipedia puts it quite well: > An internet meme, commonly known as just a meme, is an activity, concept, catchphrase, or piece of media that spreads, often as mimicry or for humorous purposes, from person to person via the Internet. The spreading from person to person being the crucial part.
- mirimir 8y ago> The spreading from person to person being the crucial part. People mailed them to each other.
- sverige 8y agoWell, there was no internet a hundred years ago. Nor photocopiers. But I'll bet these spread like wildfire from person to person back then, limited only by how willing the original viewer was to risk losing their copy to a family member or friend. And back then, family members and friends spent a lot more time together in close physical proximity. And now that they've been digitized, you can guarantee that at least one of us here is going to do our part to fulfill the original and best purpose of the internet, which is to share funny pictures of cats. These are extraordinary specimens!
- tokai 8y agoBoth the word and the concept has become a meme. Nitpicking its "real" meaning is misunderstanding the meme.
- bachmeier 8y ago> a real meme is something more than just a funny picture. > The spreading from person to person being the crucial part. The article says: "They were called postcards, or souvenir cards, and mailing them to friends and relatives was immensely popular for sharing a gilded, snowy holiday scene or even a lolcat."
- codetrotter 8y ago
- GuiA 8y ago> ”He makes exposures at 1/5th of a second, has to junk two-thirds of his negatives,” That’s quite impressive especially given the subjects and shutter speed; if I get 1/3 of negatives I’m happy with on a 120 roll, it’s a very good day indeed.
- sizzzzlerz 8y agoIn his case, motion blur given live subjects would be a common problem, resulting in trashing two-thirds of the photos. With a modern camera and sensitive file or sensors, you can shoot at much faster shutter speeds for the same amount of light. On a given shoot, I may take 250-500 shots of which, unless I screw up, almost all are technically fine (correct exposure and focus) but only a handful turn out to be keepers for aesthetic reasons. But then, I shoot mostly landscapes which tend not to move around too much.
- svachalek 8y ago"120 roll" refers to an early 20th century camera technology. I've never worked with anything near that old but I had the same thought, getting 33% keepers under the circumstances is pretty amazing.
- __feda__ 8y ago"he committed suicide after receiving a cancer diagnosis" Wow, he sure came to a sad end to his life after spending so much of it making such whimsical images. I guess the stress of looking after his parents had ground him down a lot over the years. Nice pictures though.
- ainar-g 8y agoI mean, he was 73 at the time. Having lived a long life, making a small but noticeable difference in the world, I think he had the full right to say "Ah, screw it, I'm done." after receiving the diagnosis.
- cultus 8y agoCancer was pretty much a death sentence back then. I would have made the same call.
- howard941 8y agoBuried a few miles away from my rotten workplace https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/24091730/harry-whittier-frees https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/24091730/harry-whittier-...
- gm-conspiracy 8y agoDo you live in SRQ?
- howard941 8y agoYeah but I work in Pinellas Co
- gm-conspiracy 8y agoHow is that commute?
- howard941 8y agoSoul crushing, dangerous, unsustainable
- SlowRobotAhead 8y ago“He never married” It’s rare to that euphemism used in modern writing. I’m guessing the author might have just read it in research and copied it.
- tasuki 8y agoHow is that a euphemism?
- SlowRobotAhead 8y agoIt's a very classic way to say "he's queer" before it was at all socially acceptable to talk about it.
- tasuki 8y agoInteresting! How would one say that... he never married?
- SlowRobotAhead 8y agoStraight and never married? IDK, ladies man, or committed to his work, or never settled down? It would be arguing the “social” he never married vs the literal. It’s been reasonable acceptable to say gay since I was a kid so I only know about the phase from reading.
- jwilk 8y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/He_never_married https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/He_never_married But I suppose the author meant that "he never married" in the literal sense.
- notriddle 8y agoMaybe these count as memes, and maybe they don't... ... but they are now! I'm definitely making image macros out of these things!
- ggggtez 8y ago>claimed the cats were alive Yeah I dunno about that. Those legs look pretty bent out of shape...
- rement 8y agoI think the only part of the cat that is really the cat is the head. All the pictures have a darker flat background. I assume the scene is setup and there is a hole in the background for the cat to stick it's head through. The photographer can get the cats to look somewhere and take the picture. It's also possible some of the paws are real but I also feel they don't quite look right.