Young Writers Society

That's right! The internet has brought you another nut to crack: is this cat going up or down the stairs?



I'm pretty sure he's going up. The cat's got that sort of look in its eyes.

Well? Discuss!

I say down. Or up. Or down.

I don't know.

I saw up at first. Now I see down.

...and it kind of looks like up again.

It kind of depends which part of the picture I'm looking at. I tend to see it as up, but it keeps changing on me!

oh mah goodness, sideways?

I can see both fairly easily, but it seems more like up to me. The white area behind the cat looks more like the bottom of the staircase than a top.

As niteowl said, I can see both easily. Basically if you add color, shadow, and things like that, it would determine this feud.

I say down. The shadows suggest it.

Could be either. I kind of think he's going down? Maybe? Yep, definitely down.

See those patches next to the stairs on the wall? The long sides of those go horizontal, so the stairs in the picture are going down. I also agree with Lumi about the shadows. However, the door at the bottom /does/ look like a "down" door, and the cat looks like it's going down too. I call photoshoppery.

Look at the ridges on the stairs. If he's going down then their sticking out a little, but if he's going up they would be sticking up. Not only would that be dangerous, but it's not uncommon for there to be a little lip on the stairs like that.

it could just be bad quality construction

I'm pretty sure a cat doesn't walk like that if it's going down. I say it's going up.

It's going up the stairs.

Look at its paws. They're angled in such a way to pull the cat up, not to step down. :p

I actually think the cat is coming down. First of all, the lip on the steps gives it away. Second, cats can and will step like that when going down, moreso than when going up

If it was going up, its front paw would probably be more curled-in so as to actually pull it up; as it is, said front paw is rather flat and extended so that (if the cat was hypothetically going up) it would be awkward for said cat to pull itself up that way, as it has no momentum stored in the muscles there.

Also, I second folks who've pointed out the shadows. Without some awkward lighting from the back-top of the shot, just outside the edge, it would be hard to get those shadows on a cat who's going up.

I actually think what would be decisive is if we could see the cat's other front leg clearly. If we could see exactly how that was positioned, it might be much more obvious if the cat was going up or down, considering how they brace themselves—which is a little more telling than the way they step.