You know I'm always referencing old rock 'n' roll songs in my blog. Today's title comes from Elton John's "High Flying Bird." OK, now I have to play it while I write this. So in this storytelling image, Kiwi is an old timey aviator. I had this image in my mind since May and finally pulled it off this week. I had the physical elements I needed for quite a while -- his bespoke aviator hat was crafted by Amélie of ToScarboroughFair, who makes the most excellent cat chapeaus, and a custom silk aviator scarf made by Kate of Le Beau Cou Scarves. Both of these ladies do outstanding work.

The reason it took so long was because I was really dreading putting the hat on my boy. He's pretty easy going but a cap that has a chin strap and his little ears need to go through? Uh... wasn't sure he was gonna love that. And he didn't. Although in all honesty, he didn't hate it, either. He did put up with me for about five minutes and gave some good face but he certainly let us know when the photography session was over. The low rumbling of a growl started and bam we took the hat off and let him go about his business. Also, I think it helped that I kept trying the hat on him for a few weeks before the shoot so at least he could feel it on his head.

We didn't even wrap the scarf around his neck... that would be a bridge too far. I wrapped the scarf around a glass about the same circumference as his neck then hit it with a fan to get a breeze going. I cut the cat and the scarf out in Photoshop, then found a perfect plane to put him in... a Sopwith Camel with an open cockpit.

There were things I didn't like about the plane. I didn't like how the landing gear really stood out. I mean, I know, that's a feature, not a bug, on the real plane but it just made it look... fake. As if a cat flying a plane isn't fake enough. And it looked too new. I added some spin blur to the propeller to make it look like it was moving.

Finally, I needed a sky. So I found a great sky with slightly ominous clouds and began moving Kiwi in the plane into a lower position until I could get rid of the landing gear. Then it looked unbalanced. But! I realized if I could take the sky background, duplicate it, put it above the cat/plane/scarf layers, I could paint in some of those clouds to make it look like the plane was flying through it, thus obscuring but not totally eliminating the landing gear! Who's the smart one now? Mm hmm.

The sky I used had a lot of texture already in it so I just added more to everything else which then solved two other issues. One, it took some of the gleam off of the plane and two, it gave everything the same tone, which is a step I need to do anyway but it was solved with just adding a golden hued texture. And boom shakalacka! Dunzo.

So now you can see the original composite but then I went one step further and put the image in an old book on a desk. Which one would you want? Who will your pet be? Check out my Storytelling Sessions and then let's plot your story.