Fantasia – 6 and a half week old Fawn Temple Cat sleeping with a blue teddy bear.

It took a while for Rachael to get this little kitten to make friends with the teddy bear, she was very weary and hesitant at first. Once she had been enticed to chase a feather teaser around the bear and eventually up and over it, she realised it was harmless. This made it a lot easier for Rachael to encourage Fantasia to nestle up close to the bear when she became tired, then once the little kitten was in a deep slumber, Rachael was able to gently, limb by limb, manoeuvre her up and onto the bear to make it look like she had fallen asleep cuddling her new best friend.

Fantasia appeared in Rachael’s book Smitten: A Kitten’s Guide to Happiness

Fantasia was Photographed by Rachael using her 4x5 inch Toyo View Camera with 160 Portra Film, using a large Octo Elinchrom Softbox Studio Flash in the home of the breeder.

* This image is from Rachael’s earlier work, which were all photographed using a Large Format 4x5 inch Film Camera, and occasionally a 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 White, Whitewashed or Oak Frame with or without a border.