Hera

A photo of my cat, Hera, which passed away early 2015 + a little sob-story.

In 2009,  I was denied from photography college and art school after presentation of my works. This image is one of the works I presented (I was 19 years old, at that time). Until then, I loved photography and wanted to become a photographer. I have never been very confident about my skills and the rejection was really hard for me. I was pretty sure it had to do with something I said, rather than my photos but self-doubt was chipping away on me. I gave up on photography and very rarely touched my camera again. Instead, I continued studying IT at my local university. In 2013, after once again being frustrated when thinking about photography, I decided to publish one of my photos to Imgur. I wanted to have the response and opinion of a broader audience - an audience that wasn't friends or family. I really wanted to learn what people thought of my photos and editing. Whether there was even anyone out there who would like to see what I am doing at all. So, with a lot of self-doubt and knowing that people could be rather brutal I published the photo on Imgur. And... the response was massive! It went to the front page in a matter of a few hours and was used and republished on all kinds of websites. I was completely overwhelmed by the response and the liking people took in something I made and the joy it brought them. People made animated GIFs of it, used it as their profile pictures and just loved it. I did not get back into photography, but I am planning to pick my camera up again more often. If you are looking for the post on Imgur, here it is: imgur.com/gallery/jESF2

But that's not the end of the story.

In 2015, I lost Hera to cancer. It was really hard on me back then. Months later, in September 2015, a friend of mine showed me a Facebook profile hew found by accident, with a Graffiti version of her. I was really confused. After getting in touch with the Facebook profile owner (a very nice women) it turned out, a Graffiti artist in Spain used my image of Hera as a template for a Graffiti artwork in an urban Graffiti contest. The really great thing is, that after lots of Google Street Map surfing, I finally found her and as of April 2017, the image is still available via Google Maps: www.google.at/maps/@40.9699409… I got in contact with the artist as well and talked a bit with them. Seeing that artwork in real life really meant so much to me after losing her.

The picture got used by a lot of companies, producing stickers, car decals, backpacks and the sorts - sadly without any consent. But at the same time I am really happy to see the picture and Hera living on like this. Also a russian pet grooming salon is using it as their logo and has printed it on a large canvas to have it outside their shop (without consent either, but it's really fascinating to see regardless ^^).