Cougar – Two-year-old Domestic Tabby Cat in a Bubble Bath

Normally to bathe a cat takes brute force, perseverance, courage….and a cat, the last ingredient is usually the hardest to come by, but not in Cougar’s case. Cougar was part of the Mark Vette Family, an Animal Trainer, and behaviorist that trains animals for film and TV work, so Cougar was used to being asked to do unusual things. Marie, Cougars trainer, spent a good couple of weeks getting Cougar used to jumping into a tub of warm water and standing watching an eyeliner prior to the shoot day. So Cougar was well adjusted to the feeling of his body being wet, the only difference on the day of the shoot was the background and the introduction of soapy foam and floating bubbles, but Cougar being Cougar took everything in his stride and posed perfectly knowing that a treat was coming his way in between camera clicks.  

Cougar appeared in Rachael’s first cat book 101 Cataclysms: For the Love of Cats and again in Rachael’s book It’s a Zoo Out There, it is one of Rachael’s favourite Cat images.

Cougar was Photographed by Rachael using her 4x5 inch Toyo View Camera with 160 Portra Film using Natural Light.

* 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 be framed using a White, Whitewashed, Oak, or dark Wood Frame with or without a border.