About

My Roots in Photography

I’ve had a camera in my hand since I was six years old, and that’s quite a longtime.  For my sixth birthday, my grandfather asked me what I wanted. I wanted a camera and transistor radio, which was equivalent of the MP3 player in terms of popularity. I loved music, but I also loved the idea of taking pictures and capturing moments of my traveling adventures with my grandparents. He wouldn’t buy me both and told me I’d have to choose. He wasn’t trying to be cheap; he was trying to teach me a lesson about making good choices and knowing what I wanted. I can remember standing in the store looking at both, trying to decide. I finally chose the camera, and it’s ironic that years later I grew up to be a journalist who many times takes pictures of my subjects.

It was an Ansco Cadet II that used flash bulbs and offered the option of taking black & white or color photos. Back then, you had to buy either black & white or color film, which of course was more expensive. The camera came with a hard shell case and the external flash unit along with extra flash bulbs. With my little camera, I really thought I was living large, and I was.

Since that time, I’ve owned many cameras, from the instamatics to the Colorburst – Kodak’s answer to the Polaroid – to the Canon AE Program to my current Canon Rebel. I even had one of those cameras that used floppy disks to record images, until my cat knocked it off of my dining table causing internal damage.

I’m not a technical photographer in the sense of F-stops, etc., but I focus on composition, subject matter and angles that catch my eye. I’ve always enjoyed taking photos, particularly of animals, and capturing a funny or poignant moment in time.

I’ve been a working journalist more than half of my professional life taking time to embrace other careers: victim advocacy, public relations and nonprofit work. Currently, I’m a freelance writer and journalist, and I teach composition at a community college. I also write fiction and have an MFA in Creative Writing (Fiction) from Queens University of Charlotte, NC.

Why Greeting Cards?

The digital age of cameras has changed at least how I use my equipment. I rarely print out photos anymore, and with the ease of photo cards, I can take multiple shots to make sure I get the right one. I’ve uploaded some of my photos on my social media sites in the past and received positive responses. Over the last couple of years, I’ve thought about using my images to create blank greeting cards. I like to send out notes to friends for different things, and I’ve always kept notecards on hand for that purpose. I decided to combine these two interests, knowing that others might also find them enjoyable.

The title of my cards came to me because of the funny stereotypes that people make about women and cats. The “& Friends” part refers to future card sets that I have in mind to make.

I’ve opened a shop on Etsy and sell my cards there. You can visit my shop here. I can’t sell them from this site, but here you’ll find information about the cards, and I’ll share stories about some of the crazy antics my cats and other animals have done. Some of the photos aren’t current, as the animals may be deceased, but for privacy reasons, I will always address the animals in present tense.

As time goes on, my hope is to add new notecard sets with different photos. In the meantime, I hope you enjoy my cards and my cats.

Bonny