So I came across this photoof a bunch of cats on Facebook earlier.
Is it real?
If so, did the person just wait until all of the cats happened to be laying in those baskets? I find that a little hard to believe since it probably would have taken ages for them all to be in them at the same time.
If not that, did they put the cats in the baskets at the same time, you think? Even that seems unlikely, as most cats will jump out and around the minute you let go of them.
And I really don’t want to think that there’s something actually holding all of the cats down, trapped in the baskets, because that’d be pretty mean just to take one photo.
It wouldn’t be too difficult to Photoshop. Take a picture of a cat in a basket sitting on the floor. Repeat with more cats in more baskets. Cut out the outline and use layers to “stack” the cats on top of each other.
But in a multi-cat household, far more often than not all the cats will be asleep at the same time.
Scenario: each cat is already crapped out in their own basket, just another lazy afternoon; one at a time, the baskets are slowly stacked. A cat in deep sleep, or even just “profound lazy” mode won’t be bothered by careful handling.
Photographer makes a low volume, soft sound to gently wake them all up or get their attention, snaps the shutter. I think it’s real, if only because it would be even faster and easier than photoshopping such a picture.
Doesn’t look like it to me. Besides, pasting a photo of a cat in a basket isnt going to distort the size of their head. (Is it?) Are you saying the cats have been shopped onto a stack of empty baskets?
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Although I agree with TreacherousCretin that it wouldn’t be too hard to have a real shot taken, I think this one is photoshopped. The baskets look too precariously perched on top of each other to be stable, and there’s no ‘weight bend’. If you look very closely at the outline, there’s a bit o’ blur.
If it were real, how could the top cats get in without knocking the whole thing down?
If the cats’ owners just waited until they were in their baskets, wouldn’t they jump/wiggle out/start playing or fighting with each other when they were moved? They just happen to all be facing the same way, looking at the camera and not interacting with each other?
I wouldn’t say definitively it’s not a photoshop, but there are a couple of details that look real to me:
1: the perspective of the stacked baskets is correct. You’re looking down on the bottom basket, and slightly up at the top basket. This is not a case of sticking one basket on the floor at a time and then pasting them together in layers; those baskets were either stacked when the photo was taken or somebody took a great deal of care to take a picture of each one at a slightly different angle. Stacking them is the easier way.
2: the shadows and lighting on the cats. Each cat’s fur has some reflected light from its basket and the colors are very good; the cat in the pink basket has pink reflecting on the bottom of its face and some blue on its back from above, the one in the green basket has green etc. If someone took a picture of a stack of empty baskets and photoshopped cats into them, that’s a detail that is likely to be overlooked. Especially since the effect isn’t equally visible for all the cats, because of the white baskets, or dark colored cats. I’d say the cats were likely in the baskets when the photo was taken.
The shadows of the baskets themselves are consistent. Given the shadow on the floor, they’re lit from somewhere almost directly overhead, and that is not contradicted either by the shadow on the wall or the lighting of the cats in their baskets.
The baskets are designed to be stacked and I don’t think they’re quite as precarious as they look. The most questionable part really is, how do you get seven cats to do the same thing at the same time? I suppose it might be a case of multiple photos of the same stack of baskets with different cats in them at different times, until they got a full stack’s worth of cats each looking at the camera, but I can’t say that for sure.
I only have two cats, but they are frequently in the same position at the same time, and quite often make bookends. For example I have two wicker chairs. Quite often there is a cat in each chair, and either they’re both curled, or they’re both loafed, or they’re sitting up with their tails hanging on opposite sides of their respective chairs.
7 cats in the first picture, 8 cats in the second. Wouldn’t it be more precarious? Looks a little too solid and un-squished.
But if it’s real, props to the human got them to sit so calm and quiet all together like that. God knows, my cats can’t even walk by each other without swatting. And they are 13 year old brother and sister.
Props to the plastics manufacturer as well, them’s some well made baskets.
My sister only has three cats and although they don’t get along well when awake* they will often all sleep on three of the 4 shelves on their scratching post, and often all in the same position. I have no trouble whatsoever believing that those pictures are real.
(*the two “normal” cats like to tackle the three-legged one…and by “normal” I mean one is obese and the other has a docked tail…my sister adopts the humane-society rejects)
Most of the cats I’ve known preferred to curl up in easily defensible crevices like those baskets. They were also nimble enough to leap up without having any momentum left over (most of the time.)
It’s not at all hard to train cats well enough that you can get them to sit in/on something while you take their picture. I would hope that anyone who has 8 cats understands how to train them to some degree! You can see they are all awake and alert, and several look like they are just ready to step or jump out. It’s definitely staged.
Plus cats tend to enjoy and be calmed by small, somewhat enclosed spaces like those baskets.
Perfectly reasonable that this image happened exactly so in real life. Could also be 'shopped; almost anything could be.
I’m pretty sure their heads look a bit big because they are British shorthairs, which tend to have rounder, larger heads and thicker bodies than American random-bred cats.
ETA: This is my second bitchy post ‘train your damn cats’ post in as many days, I know. But seriously, people, train your cats! It’s fun!
Kids don’t train themselves to do your bidding either, and will gladly accept you as ‘staff’; doesn’t mean you can’t or shouldn’t discipline them.
