How I ended up photographing 17 cats in two days
A while ago I photographed a cat in mid-air. Which, as it turns out, is not the sort of photograph everybody has lurking in their portfolio.
So when cat food company KatKin was planning its Unleash the Kitten campaign and wanted photographs of cats in the air, they found me after seeing this photograph of a Maine Coon on Instagram.
An idea that grew legs. And occasionally wings.
The original idea developed during pre-production into something rather bigger, with cats jumping, reaching, twisting, chasing toys and generally producing all sorts of wonderfully ridiculous shapes.
For the airborne photographs, their owners gently tossed them onto an enormous beanbag while I photographed the split second in between. As I said in the newsletter, no cats were harmed in the making of these photographs.
Photographing animals is always a collaboration of sorts. You can have an idea of the picture you want, but the personality in front of the camera is a large part of what makes the finished photograph interesting. With cats, that is particularly true.
From the studio to the streets of London
The finished images appeared across KatKin’s Unleash the Kitten campaign and eventually rather larger than I’m accustomed to seeing my work: projected onto buildings around London.
Seeing one of your photographs several storeys high above Shoreditch is a fairly surreal experience. Not something I get to say about every shoot.
And that’s how I ended up photographing 17 cats in two days.
If you have a commercial project involving animals, people or something altogether more unusual, I’d love to hear your ideas.
