Yes, I was thinking the same thing Preston. But its hard sometimes not to go off on a tangent isn't it when you get into these discussions?

Thanks, I've never liked "christmasy" props much but got the idea of just using a few balls from Julie (thanks Julie!). I tied those three together to help keep them on the table. I think what happened with the background flash was we got to shooting and I'd shot a bunch of those two cats before I realized it wasn't going off. It may have been batteries out, or we just forgot to turn it on, we were turning it off sometimes between shoots to save battery. I think overall those photos are on the dark side, they do look better when larger. I think I'm going to eventually go your route with a stand alone strobe for the background (I'll start another thread for that topic...).

Diana