Nearly a decade ago, here in Our Fair City, the town had 31 life-size fiberglass horses done up by artisans and displayed at various businesses. At the end of a time period they were auctioned off to raise money for some cause. There are about a third of them still visible around.
Now, this year it is 28 cats, about 3 times scale, that are getting the same treatment. We went downtown today to photograph as many as we could. I think we managed to snag about half of them. And unfortunately most are behind storefront windows and are hard to photograph without distracting reflections detracting from the image.
When we talked with one cat sitting business we discovered that not only would the cats be auctioned off at the end to raise money, the business had to bid on the privilege of hosting the painted cat. We also discovered why the cats were universally inside the business instead of outside like the horses were. Because they are a lot smaller, and consequentially lighter, they would be easy for a nefarious individual to take a cat home and the business would have to pay $5k for the loss.
The camera store had 2 in their window, so we went in to try and get a shot sans reflection when we noticed Santa sitting there just waiting for some little kids to have their photo taken with him. We chatted with him for a bit and he asked, so we agreed.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 1183