Naptime

Nothing really matters at all, originally uploaded by babykailan.

Had myself a four day weekend. To celebrate all the nothing I accomplished, I think this polaroid of Baobao the cat is in order. Flickr user Babykailan has got two very photogenic cats and a couple different cameras at his disposal. The shot above is one of only a couple shots from his Polaroid SX-70, but I think it does the best job telling the one-panel story of "the sleepiest cat in Flickr".

One great quality of photography is that not only can it record an event, a person, or a place: serving as a backup for our faulty memory, but it can augment or transform memory: telling multiple stories where there may have been none. Maybe Baobao has a daily habit of eating lunch and lying down for a nap wherever there is an unoccupied chair. Looking at the photo, however, I see Baobao padding around an apartment on a Saturday afternoon and discovering that his favorite green chair has been pushed into a patch of sunlight coming through the living room window. Settling in, he thinks to himself, Beibei was extra nice to me today, maybe tomorrow I'll let him win when we play-fight in the morning. As he drifts off to sleep, he chuckles silently as a man wielding a funky folding camera comically tries to find the right angle by which to capture his cat on polaroid.

Drawn in by an appropriately fuzzy focus and soft, hazy exposure, I can't help but feel content along with Babykailan's beautiful cat. It brings a smile to my face. I hope to see more polaroid shots from Babykailan's flickr stream. Unfortunately, there might be a problem. While it seems like there's been an increasing numbers of polaroid shooters on flickr, Polaroid announced just a couple weeks ago that it is ditching the instant film market and would be closing their film factories by the end of the year. It's really too bad. I guess this pricey niche camera/film will be remaining niche and be turning much pricier in the years to come.