Bert has long been my best cat buddy.  He was especially good at taking naps.  On this day, he was zonked out at the edge of a patch of sunlight at the same time as I was reading a lion story in a magazine.  When I looked at Bert, I thought that he might be interested in the story as well.  He opened one eye, then went back to sleep.  The photograph was taken when he opened that one eye to read the magazine (actually, he opened his eye to see why I was disturbing his nap!).

This photograph made use of a couple gadgets.  There was enough filtered sunlight to allow me to set the scene with my camera on a tripod and focus on the magazine page (notice I had to prop up the magazine to get the angle I wanted).  I didn't think there was enough sunlight and yet I wanted to have Bert's head in silhouette.  A long cord was used between the camera body and a small electronic flash.  This allowed me to aim the flash so its light would only illuminate the magazine - not Bert's head.  Next, I used a cable release for the shutter.  When I got the flash in the correct position, I pressed the cable release.  I would highly recommend having a small flash unit which can be detached from the camera and still be controlled by the camera's shutter release system.  Finally, flash units which have a 1/4-20 threaded base are best since they can be mounted on a tripod.