Stray Cats and Pet Birds
I've really been enjoying taking a bit of a break from the more frequent posting lately. It has been really nice to put that time elsewhere and get some things going that I've been needing to for a long time. Though sometimes writing about something is nice. Something a little more than the usual social media caption that doesn't really say a lot. These images were taken over several days throughout a few different walks. I have been seeing a lot of stray cats lately, and it has been really nice to see the diversity of life here in Armenia. Whether it's the adorable dogs or the cats. These cats have varied in age, from little kittens to adult cats. The kittens being a bit more cautious, the adults being adorable and coming up all curious about the camera and me.
Some of them tend to follow me around a bit. I try to keep them away from the busy roads and in the natural settings I find them in. They appear to be well-fed most of the time. The other day I saw a few cats outside an old Soviet building, it was a messy environment and looked a bit depressing, though a woman soon came out with a bag and began to feed the cats. I have no idea what she was feeding them with, but it was nice to see that the locals were not just aware of the cats in the area, but were also willing to take care of them and keep them healthy. You don't always see that with the stray animals, sometimes they look a bit dirtier, a bit more ragged and not looking as taken care of. Though it seems that as the years go by, people are more considerate of the animals and do give them a bit of love. Whether it's petting them or feeding them routinely.
Even in the city of Yerevan, people still have little bits of farmland outside of the apartment buildings. Sometimes you see the odd fenced-off areas in which they either grow fresh produce or something more lively. Either chickens on the side of the road where they'll be used for eggs. I have no idea what the context for these birds was though. I stumbled across this shack while walking behind some old buildings and through the garages. I couldn't figure out what type of birds they were, but they were beautiful looking things.
I've been shooting a bit of everything lately. Really just trying to get out of my comfort zone with photography and try new things. Even starting to take an interest in the more direct approach of street photography. I think at some point I'll have the want to share it here. But until then, I might come back every now and then to share a photography post beyond the travel adventures. With more focus on those rather than the daily photography. The momentum continues though. The love for photography as strong as ever.
It's great that you are stepping out of your comfort zone with photography and trying the street photography approach. I'm sure you'll have amazing images to share. Your passion for photography is palpable. I will look forward to seeing those new visual adventures. Regards.👋
Thank you! I hope you've been doing well over the past week.
The street photography stuff is very exciting. Getting more up close to people and capturing different aspects of life, also learning a lot more about photography which feels strange when you've already been doing it so long and assumed you didn't have much else to learn! But that's the fun of it all.
My motivation lately is going through the roof. Just so excited for summer and to get out and explore and do what I love the most.
Stray cats are beautiful creatures. Generally, all they want is love, and they follow you around for that. Sometimes they also want food. By the way, your profile picture looks much better now, man. The old one had a dark vibe :P
I've noticed that's all they want most of the time, it's the stray dogs that will follow me around regardless of whether there's food involved. I had one follow me for 1.4 miles the other week! An adorable little thing I wish I could've kept.
Yeah I wanted to finally change it, to try to give a more personal approach with the interactions on here. A lot of people show their faces on here now, I don't think it's how it used to be where it was considered a bad thing and "unsafe" to do so.
I won't be making open-mouth thumbnails for my posts anytime soon though, haha
Unless you're a clickbait YouTuber, there's no need to do this, man.
I'm going to hazard dove as they don't look stupid enough to be quails or derpy enough to be pidgeons (or at least not the type I'm familiar with XD
Yay for people taking care of the strays. Hope they have a spay and release kind of program there though otherwise the population will probably just keep exploding with people taking care of them if some of them aren't also being adopted into houses.
Or maybe the cats that you found all belong to that one crazy cat lady and you were in her backyard (or whatever she considers her backyard XD)
You do see those types in the more rural areas. All covered in homemade clothing, cozy knitted items all patchy and old. It's quite sweet to see.
I think that's the case with some of the stray dogs at least. They do tag them. And I think that involves monitoring, injections, and perhaps a bit of population control. So generally it's the non-tagged dogs you want to avoid, and the tagged ones you can relax a bit more around. Though I've found even non-tagged dogs that are utterly adorable; just a tad bit more caution.