Chocki –8 week old Chocolate brown Persian kitten sitting in a fishbowl

Chocki has to be one of the most humourous kittens Rachael has had the pleasure to photograph; it is common knowledge that cats love to get inside things and Chocki was definitely no exception. As soon as Rachael bought out the fishbowl, Chocki was all over it, he dived inside after the feather teaser and then proceeded to spin around and around inside, surely making himself dizzy. There are images of him upside down with his feet sticking out, with his entire body submerged inside the bowl and even one with his tail draped out of the hole, but it was this image where the glass edge magnifies Chocki’s facial expression and his eyes protrude with pure intensity that captured the heart of Rachael and her publishers being chosen as the cover image for one of Rachael’s favourite publications It’s a Zoo Out There.

Chocki was photographed in the breeder's living room, using a large Elinchrom Octa Studio Flash, on Rachael’s Toyo-View 4x5 camera and Portra 160 film, with numerous other Persians roaming around.

* This image is from Rachael’s earlier work, which were all photographed using a Large Format 4x5 inch Film Camera, and occasionally an 8x10 inch Polaroid Camera. Rachael used a very shallow depth of field when photographing with film cameras, this gives these images a softer more painterly quality when printed, the prints still look stunning in all sizes and make magnificent Art pieces, they just don’t appear quite as crisp as an image created on a digital camera.

Rachael recommends this image to be framed using a Black or Dark Wood Frame, this image looks best full-bleed when using a Dark Frame; this image can also look striking with a white border and framed with a white frame.