photo shoot

Get To Know: Mittenmaus

MITTENMAUS [my love] AKA Mitty, Mittybae, Mitts, and any other adorable version!

Pure Standard, Born 07/03/2013, approximately 800 grams

Mitty Toy

Role in Playtime Kingdom? Top Dog and engineer – Mitty’s the king of his playtime! He utilizes his time out to jump, surf, investigate, measure, climb, and stretch those adorable paws.

Favorite Hiding Place? Under the couch, but near the edge so he can catch action and wall jump around it at any given point.

Mitty Couchy

Physical Capability? Super strong and a high jumper! Watch his epic jumps below!

Vocal? Sometimes, but this is one mature chin. He doesn’t like to make a ruckus! Mitty has been known to purr or sing from time to time, but never in excess.

Human Cuddle Status? Not a huge fan. 75% of the time will not accept cuddles, although if you catch him on a rare day, he will turn all the way around for scratches! Other than that, puh-leeease! This is a chin that is nearly human! He demands freedom and respect. Eskimo kisses during playtime are a 50/50 shot – take it human, it’s better than nothing.

Loaf

Favorite Way to Be Picked Up? While Mitty doesn’t like feeling small enough to be picked up, he will accept daily and necessary pick-ups with ease. He enjoys being held gingerly by the torso and base of the tail, although he will sometimes rest like a fluffy loaf in my arms (it’s part of the dance before he pounces off and announces cessation from the herd).

Intelligence? Soaring. Super. Very high. Potentially smarter than me. Watch him communicate his needs below!

Is He Compatible with Other Chinchillas? He likes to flirt with Lulu, but has a rocky history with the rest of the group. Muffton was his best bud until they lost their bond – now, they are mortal enemies as they chirp competitively at the ladies. Fifi was once amicable with him until she decided to go berserk and partially sever one of his fingers; needless to say, they don’t talk anymore. Koko is not very interesting to him. So, he spends most of his time alone or with his mom (that’s me!). On rare occasions, he’ll be given supervised playtime with miss Lulu until she starts getting annoyed.

Ready for a Photo Shoot? Nope! He’s no object to be paraded around, and he knows it. He likes to be known for more than just his good looks, and will jet off set as soon as he’s placed on it. Multiple attempts are needed to get a still shot (tips on chinchilla photography here)!

Mitts Mailbox

Love to Dust? Yes! Mitty favors dusting and has no dry skin issues, but he won’t go crazy – he knows how many full body turns he likes to do at bath time (4-5) and after that, he’s all set for the day. He’s all about maintaining a healthy and balanced lifestyle. He’ll do a quick dust every day, as supervised by mom.

Three Words/Phrases to Sum Up His Personality? Smarty-Pants, Freedom Fighter, King of the Castle

Mitty Wicker Chair 2

Next Week… Mufftoneous!

LY Chinchillas Treat Donation

Donate healthy, delicious treats to LY Chinchillas to help keep our content going!

$5.00

Chinchilla Holiday Cheer!

As the chestnut praline lattes spiral gloved hands and Christmas tree shops begin to adorn every corner, it’s inevitable to fight it – Holiday Cheer is headed our way! As soon as the Thanksgiving bird is carved, Christmas sparkle starts to infiltrate our spiced cinnamon veins, trickling slowly to our pulsing glitterati hearts. We love this season!

LY Chinchillas Holiday S

The city has been absolutely glimmering. With the bittersweet entrance of winter, we start bundling up in hats and scarves – and we can’t help reminiscing about yesteryear and futurescape. The falling leaves, the harsh wind’s kiss, the soft flutter of snowflakes. It’s important to remember: yes, while this time of year is tough and frigid, it’s romantic as well. This time is as important as any other in our lives. After all, we’re together for now, aren’t we?

City Holidays LYCs

While we’ve had a barrage of family visiting from nearby states and overseas alike, we’ve found a way to incorporate chin-love into the center of the holidays. Sure, we traipse the incredibly shimmery streets of New York City during the day while the chins are snoozing, but upon our return, we shower them with holiday cheer and endless love! That’s what the holidays are all about – forcible cuddling (just kidding!), delicious treats (sparingly!), and family.

And yes, of course – I conducted a full-on holiday photo shoot. No shame, only props and sweet misbehaving chinchillas! Photos will be released on our Facebook Page throughout this lovely month! I’m also thinking of doing another shoot with snowflakes and drums (think snowy little drummer boy scene) – but we’ll have to wait til the excitement of this week’s shoot has calmed a bit. Luckily, this shoot required no treats and that is a great thing – it means more shoots and more obedient, healthy chins.

That doesn’t mean, however, that the lucky babies don’t get any treaties! We all need a special little something from time to time in order to ensure our ongoing sanity. That, my friends, is how I spent my Black Friday weekend – buying family gifts and getting myself a little something as well. 🙂

Anyhow, as things are regulating lately, I’ll be posting every Wednesday here on the blog! There will be daily postings on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, weekly on YouTube (be sure to subscribe!). The whole family wishes you a great start to your December!

LY Chinchillas Treat Donation

Donate healthy, delicious treats to LY Chinchillas to help keep our content going!

$5.00

How To: Chinchilla Photography

As a professional photographer in New York City, I’ve had my share of dramatic clients – fussing over hair and makeup, complaining about angles, and throwing out last-minute conceptual changes. Yeah, sometimes high fashion and editorial work can be extremely particular, but if great minds come together to accomplish the task, beautiful imagery can result.

Chinchillas, on the other hand – well, where to begin? They are inherently adorable (to me, they are the cutest animals on this planet) and can do no wrong visually. However, they won’t come together with you on a photo shoot. They won’t say – oh sure, I’ll swipe my tail 45 degrees to the left and wink at you while holding up an apple stick with my right paw. If only! Chins are hard to get ahold of, and even if you have a non-reactive chinchilla (like my Koko), photographing them can be tough. They’re drama queens in their own right!

Flash photography is the easiest and most practical type of photography to use when snapping an image of a high-speed, high-energy animal. It freezes them in frame instantly, and most of the time won’t have blur. That means you can capture them jumping, twirling, turning, or performing any onslaught of energetic feats – but the image won’t be soft or cuddly, like we know our chinchillas to be. Along with diminishing their furry details and barraging their colors with an unsightly whitewash, flash photography will likely cause you to put in some post-processing time; you should expect to use a photo-editing program to get those tiny red eyes out of your photo.

Chins look best when photographed without flash, as most standard non-diffused flash units will be too harsh on their fluffy details. The problem with studio photography is that it typically requires more setup time, careful planning, and safe treats on hand! As far as camera settings go, you’ll need a slower shutter speed (or a super-bright lighting system). I like to maintain a low ISO on all my photographs to keep images less noisy, meaning my settings will slow down overall processing speeds even more.

As far as personal photographic tastes go, I’m ALL about natural lighting. Give me the morning sun, sulking half-light, or a heavy sunset. I love it all: the emotive depth, the searing contrast, the daring illusory effects. For all my clients, I suggest going natural. It’s more challenging (so to say, more interesting) than a studio shoot and lends a level of professionalism that supersedes the senseless ‘pro ideal’ of a $20,000 camera set and a 3,000 square ft NYC studio (although wouldn’t we all love to bathe in such fanciness ~ as the chins love to bathe in dust). I believe strongly in natural lighting, it shows in my work.

As far as chinchilla photography goes, I’m ALL about just surviving the shoot! Natural light is still the best for beautiful images, but studio photography accomplishes what natural lighting can’t – being able to be done at any time of the day. I’ll still grab my Nikon for the playtime sessions with the kids, but if I’m looking for some high-quality commercial-level imagery, I’ll overwhelmingly choose a studio set. That means I’m gonna put in 20 minutes to get the lighting right but only end up shooting for a minute or two. Sets should be simple and clean, allowing the focus to be on the chins – adding in a colorful fleece background or sprinkling marigolds can brighten up the scene without detracting from the furry spectacle.

It’s imperative to prepare for the skittishness of the babies. Since chinchillas are nocturnal, their eyes perform better in low light, so I’m sure the brightness of the set becomes irritating very quickly. Chins have such little patience when it comes to waiting for human error to correct itself, so it’s best to be ready with a tripod and set your camera to high-speed continuous shooting mode, and give it your best!

Remember, patience and effort are the main components to great chinchilla photos. It doesn’t hurt to have a photo assistant to collect escaping chins or a chinchilla-safe treat on set to coax them into staying still – if only for a moment! 😀