Basket Case

Who says you can't photograph animals with large format?  I saw this cat in Iwakuni, Japan, taking a nap in the bicycle's basket and thought it would make an interesting picture.  I only had my 4x5 with me, and knew with a shot like this, it's now or never.

Click on image to enlarge.

I set up my Toyo 45AII on my tripod around a corner as not to disturb the cat.  I quickly took a spot meter reading, set the lens to the exposure and readied a film back loaded with Fuji NPS sheet film.  Picked up the camera and set it down, looked though the ground glass, framed the image and checked focus with my loupe.  Loaded the film holder, pulled the dark slide and took the shoot.  This took less than 30 seconds which is very fast for large format.

The cat never woke up.

Please visit http://www.tasphoto.com/ to see more of Todd's work.