By now most of you have probably seen Thursday’s Photo of the Day, that “Selfie” of Rocky and me.

I have to share the story behind it. I really wish I’d had a video camera to capture what led up to it. This may turn out to be one of those.. .well you had to be there… kind of stories.

I’d been playing with the idea of doing a “selfie” for one of the daily photos. It’s not the type of picture I normally take so I thought it could be a nice stretch for me. No matter what I came up with, I just wasn’t comfortable. I don’t like being in front of the camera even when someone else is taking the picture but for me to take me? Well it just seemed wrong to me somehow. But I couldn’t let it go because it’s a pretty common practice these days, especially with the advent of Cell phone cameras. Why, whole ad campaigns are built around people taking pictures of themselves.

That in mind I decided that for me it would be easier with a “co-star”, one of the cats would be perfect.

I set the camera on a tri-pod and aimed at the top of the empty cat tree and took a few practice photos for exposure and focus. (Love digital) Then I set the camera to remote release and looked around for a cat.

Smokey and Rocky were both on the multi-level cat tree and Buddy was in the bedroom asleep by the window.

Smokey was asleep but Rocky was in the middle of an ambitious grooming session under the heat lamp. He paused long enough to look at me so I said…come on, you look fine.

Ever so slowly he stood up. It was more like he uncurled and stood up, then he stretched. It was a long, slow stretch. I swear it was like watching slow motion. Then instead of just jumping down he slowly stepped down, one paw at a time stretching each leg and his back as he did. I couldn’t believe it. Was he for real? Talk about stalling!

Now I had to watch the whole stretching process  again as he covered the short space between his cat tree tree and the one I had set up.

Once at the bottom of my cat tree he had to give himself another “groom” before climbing up to the top. All I could think of was “What a primadonna!” But like any star,  once he was on the set he was all business. He looked at the camera, he looked at me, he cuddled my hand and even tried to do head bumps.

(unfortunately those suffered from motion blur and couldn’t be used).

In less time than it took him to get his silly butt over there, the photo shoot was done and I had a keeper or two for the project. As if he heard  “Cut” and “That’s a Wrap” he calmly stood up and hopped down. After a brief stop at the water bowl he resumed his favorite place, under the heat lamp.

And that’s a Wrap!