Guidelines for photographing cats (according to the New York Institute of Photography):
1. All cats are beautiful by nature, even the ugly ones.
2. Watch the subject's movements carefully and anticipate the next movement.
3. Simplify the picture by eliminating the unnecessary and retaining the necessary.
Replace "cat" with just about any other subject in the world and the guidelines still apply. Balanchine apparently wished his dancers would move as gracefully as his cats. Alice the cat would have been thrown out of his studio--she misses half her jumps.
