Shelter Cat Photography Secrets | Seattle Rescue Pet Photography

January 26, 2013January 14, 20166 Comments

Are you ready for some exciting cat photography secrets?! I wrote this with my rescue pet photography in mind, but there are lots of ideas here that will help with any pet photo work.

*This post was updated on Nov 21st, 2014. So a few new things have been added!

Many people know, in this very visual and internet-savvy age, that quality and professional photos can really get rescue/shelter animals noticed online. Great images drive up adoptions because they stand out and get people to call and come in to meet their new companions. I’ve been driven to constantly improve my craft with regards to pet photography at the rescue; I love that I can make a difference with my skills. I’d love to share some tips of mine here for those who may be thinking of contributing their photography skills in order to help out at their local animal shelter. Shelters and rescues always need help in this area; the influx of homeless animals is always there.

Just about 99.99% of my rescue photography is with cats, and my focus is generally on the adult and harder-to-adopt cats. The kittens often get quick photos done on spay and neuter nights or on intake by other volunteers. My specific help is based on the need for someone to take better photos to get the adult and harder-to-adopt cats noticed, as we often barely need a photo up for the young ‘uns before someone will come in asking to adopt a kitten. Animal Talk is the only no-kill rescue in the city of Seattle and so we are always overflowing with many adult cats! [*Note: my original post was written before we became Seattle Area Feline Rescue. We were formerly known as Animal Talk Rescue]

One of my biggest and best tips is to have a dedicated helper when photographing cats. I have to do a large amount of my photos with the cat(s) in the tiniest room (called the ‘office’, and that’s only because it has some filing cabinets in there). It’s really approximately a 5 by 5 foot tiny space with cat crates piled high and I’m photographing the cats on top of said filing cabinets (about 2 by 3 ft). And I’m on a little stepladder! I should take a photo one day to show you this tiny space…

As I said, I usually have someone help me keep the attention of the cat on the filing cabinet…and generally with a toy and lots of physical attention, petting them. No cats jumping off that cabinet, please! Dangly toys I find are great for getting their attention and to get the cats looking up…I get great eye shots that way. Experimenting with different sounds you can make with your mouth, like bird chirps, can really help too. Cats are more indifferent to noises than dogs, but they do help. I also find myself talking a lot to the kitties, especially when I photograph alone; they like the sound of the human voice and love the attention. Don’t be afraid to sound silly!

I usually take my time getting those first shots off with each cat so I can gauge how they are going to act and to warm up to being out of a crate. I used to volunteer at the rescue (doing crates) years ago, and also worked as a vet tech, so I feel like I have a good grasp of cat behavior by now. They can vary so much in how they act when in that environment; we get a lot of our adults from hoarding situations and from a high-kill shelter in Eastern WA, so I’d say there are a good lot of freaked out kitties… (*more on behavior below)
There are also what we call ‘kitty suites’ at the rescue; 3 small rooms that have about 8-10 cats in them, and those I go into by myself. It gives the cats a better chance of acting more naturally and they also usually like having me as a visitor and come to investigate me. The only way to get the shy ones in these rooms is by doing a lot of tricky maneuvering, and having a zoom. I was using my 18-55mm kit lens (a kit lens is perfectly adequate!) in the rooms with flash (Nissin di622) on my Nikon D7000, but just got a Sigma 17-70mm so having a wee bit more reach can help with ones high on the beams or cat trees.
So I do use flash with my ‘elaborate’ filing cabinet setup; in that room, we have a painted wall in the corner and I use a floor-drop. Sometimes hanging a different fabric there instead, is a good way to change up the background.
I will use a faster prime with no flash if I decide it’s not worth harassing a kitty to come out of their ‘window’ or crate, and so am taking those with my head and camera in them. The lens that is nearly always have on my camera for these types of images is a 35mm 1.8. I love this little lens! If you can photograph in the front of a cage, enclosure or crate, this is the best lens for that, and no flash needed. Drive the ISO up, and don’t worry about noise in your final image; you can usually grab some great images at an f stop of about 2.8 – 4; you want those eyes in focus above anything else. I also wouldn’t go any lower than 1/100 for shutter speed for a chill cat.
*If you’re really pressed for time to get your images back to the shelter, or upload quickly to a site, shoot in JPEG to cut down on your workflow, but that said, I always shoot in RAW. I like the flexibility in post and have a workflow that involves mostly Lightroom for batch processing and quick changes.

Another important piece of advice is to take your time to gauge behavior and let the cat ‘warm up’. Study cat behavior, what makes cats tick, how they move, how they respond to you. Do this without a camera in front of your face on your own time. It will be enormously helpful. Obviously having that dedicated cat wrangler can help with difficult or anxious cats when you’re shooting in an environment like a rescue or shelter. Another person can help calm, distract, and comfort a nervous kitty. It’s also helpful with respect to having that person take cats in and out of cages/crates for me so I don’t have to put camera down, etc. But ultimately it’s up to you to really understand cats if you want to get good photos of them. Studying their behavior will also prevent scratches and bites! Those can totally ruin a good photo session…

Are you ready for the #1 tip???
It’s to HAVE PATIENCE. I can’t stress it enough! I am very deliberate about my photos with cats; I don’t click away on that shutter, and just ‘hope’ to catch something. Even if it takes a few minutes, something good will come if you wait. You can’t rush a cat! Some people that watch me shoot don’t understand why I’m not snapping away (the ‘spray and pray’ method); honestly it really doesn’t work unless you really are trying to get action shots. I feel like I do my best when letting the cats lead, and that takes a bit of waiting for the right moment. You can’t make a cat do anything they don’t want to!! I like that challenge. When I take my time too, I get a feel for what kind of personality I want to have people notice in the cats’ photo; I want to see their real characters come out. I want to see a connection in those beautiful cat eyes. That’s what people are drawn to when they see the photos. Your goal here it to get someone to notice the cat enough to want to meet them, just come into the rescue, and if you can do that with just one excellent image to show off the essence of that kitty, you have succeeded! Your images can make a difference and I promise you, they can save lives. It’s a wonderful thing to do.
Feel free to let me know if these tips help you in your quest to help at other shelters and rescues!

Anyway, you can find much more of my cat photography at http://facebook.com/kamoorephoto 🙂 Come and follow my page!

xo ~ K

Some specific image examples below.

(*Please do not copy, share, alter, crop or use my images for your own, this is copyright infringement. Please contact me for permission to share or link to these images on your site. They are the intellectual property of K.A.MOORE PHOTOGRAPHY. I appreciate you respecting these requests ~ thank you!!*)

Taken with a prime with the kitty inside his crate

Taken at her foster home

Taken up on the filing cabinet

Taken high up on a cat beam in a ‘cat suite’

Taken from outside her kitty window

Rolling into 2013 | Reflections

January 8, 2013January 14, 2016Leave a comment

It’s already a week into 2013 and I have yet to add my two cents to the blogosphere about the passing of the old year to the new…so, Happy New Year!!

I always look forward to the new year, far more than the holidays preceding it. It signifies a new beginning, a fresh start, a chance to move forward on existing goals, and to create new ones. If I didn’t do something right in the previous year as I had wanted to, it’s time to take a look at what I can do better from here on out. I achieved some of my goals for last year and even superseded my own expectations with some things.

But then there are more personal challenges, some that I have to wrestle with others for control of, where I feel I am failing. I have already taken steps to try to pull me/us up out of the proverbial quicksand; it’s just not good to feel as though you are sinking! I’m trying to hold on to my inner strength that has served me well in the past, to get beyond some of the current hurdles. Quite aptly, I came across a picture today with the quote “The worst part about being strong is that no one ever asks if you’re okay”…

As far as my photography goes, I look forward to every day that I can learn more, try new things and challenge myself, help more rescue animals, and add new creative avenues to my work and endeavors. Already this year, I’m moving forward with all sorts of new projects and sessions and it’s exciting (if not exhausting!). I’m grateful to those who have lifted me up so far and inspired me to do more.

When I made a resolution at the start of 2011 to get back to volunteering, and so began my photography venture with Animal Talk Rescue (where I had previously spent hours volunteering cleaning out crates and so forth), it got me back to not just a creative pursuit that ballooned into so much more, but it also filled me up in terms of my spirit. If there’s anything I can suggest to anyone else who has yet to make a resolution for the new year, it’s to give back. Give back and volunteer your time and your energy to something or someone other than yourself. When you look outside of yourself, however fortunate or unfortunate you think you are, it truly does your spirit good. When it comes to animals in particular, there’s always a rescue that could use your help, your donations, a home to foster animals in…something.

I’ll start the New Year as I mean to go on, by posting a photo of a beautiful rescue kitty by the name of Sally, who needs a new home, and also with the same eternal wish for peace, strength and good health. And not just for me either!

xo ~ K

Your success and happiness lies in you. Resolve to keep happy, and your joy and you shall form an invincible host against difficulties. ~ Helen Keller

Have a Merry Meowy Christmas | Seattle Cat Photography

December 25, 2012January 14, 2016Leave a comment

It’s been a busy few weeks of photo-taking and editing as the holidays have drawn closer (and Doomsday didn’t happen, woohoo!), so I’ve been in full-on photog mode…and I’ve not even had time to do my own Christmas cards and photos! But it has actually helped replace some of the personal stressors going on; I’ve found some editing projects to be quite good stress relief, as I’m up til about 3am in the morning making everyone look perfect, and then I just crash when my head hits the pillow. That said, this girl needs at least a Christmas Day break!

There are a great many cats and kittens who have happily found their forever homes this cold holiday and for that, I am so happy, but there are always innumerable amounts of animals who don’t have a warm home with love in it, and even more who are either sitting in shelters or worse than that, abandoned and stuck outside in frigid temperatures, or awaiting a deadline for euthanasia. I hope that the Christmas spirit extends beyond the holidays and a sparkly new year is in store for many deserving kitties that I know.

May you and yours enjoy a fabulous holiday tomorrow – hold your family and your animals close and show them a lot of love!

xo ~ K

“Christmas is not as much about opening our presents as opening our hearts. ” ~ Janice Maeditere

Losing my friend Milo: grieving the death of a pet | Seattle Cat Photography

December 5, 2012January 14, 20168 Comments

I actually wanted to make a blog post about this a week ago, but because it’s less about my photography and more about something personal, I had to wait…a stressful couple of weeks has just gone by for me.

I lost a very good friend of mine last Monday – I made the decision to have my almost-16 year-old kitty friend Milo, put to sleep; he had a tumor in his mouth, under his tongue. Through the good and the bad, and almost the entire time that I have been living here in the States, he was here though it all. Found by a co-worker, he and his litter-mates had been dumped in the middle of a rural road, likely with someone’s intent for them to be hit by a car; they were still warm and huddled together. Every day my co-worker brought the whole litter of very tiny, several weeks-old kittens into work, and we bottle-fed them every couple of hours. And how could I have done that every day and not taken one home to join my other pair of feline waifs?! Milo was likely the runt of the litter, and never the smartest kitty. But what he lacked in his fluffy black noggin, he made it up with his goofiness, his affection and his constant head-butts, and lying on you as close to your face as possible. He was great friends with my 90-pound wolf-mix dog, and tolerated being dragged around and squeezed by my toddler. He enjoyed it all.

I consider my animal companions to be family, and Milo has now joined 3 other animal family members, wherever that may be.. they were my ‘original four’. And with this loss, and now that they are all gone, I think of all that has happened since I adopted my first crazy Loopi cat. During that span of almost two decades now, my Milo was with me through five moves, graduating college, a divorce, losing those other 3 animal friends, diagnosis of a chronic illness, the terrible darkness of grieving my partner, and then the light in my life coming back on again: having a baby and becoming a mum, and creating a new family. He was there through all of that. Yet the biggest problem with having animal companions in your life is that they are never here as long as you are. They likely will be gone before you. My son also has now experienced the loss of some’one’ in his life, his first lesson about death, even though he doesn’t quite understand it yet.

But these animal friends don’t go without impact. That unconditional love and the way that animals don’t judge you, are great gifts. We don’t usually get that from very many humans. For that reason, I have found it very easy to give back to my animal friends, despite the sometimes-food-pickiness, the hairballs, the poop-scooping, and deciding to lie in the most inopportune places.

At the vet clinic, after a weekend of saying my goodbyes, feeding him nothing but good and smelly wet food, and having him wear a good pain-patch of Fentanyl, I held Milo close through his passing. In my arms, now weighing only a bit over 7 pounds, I held him while he was given the initial sedative, and I felt his body relax, and then waited until the vet came into give the final injection. It happens too fast. And there, all those years of happily trotting around, and then becoming an elderly kitty who just wanted to sleep, he was physically gone. I believe the final gift I could give back to my friend for all that time, was a painless passing in my arms.

Many animals do not ever feel the love of a human companion or any kindness or a painless death, and I think of that when I have experienced my own pets’ losses; many people don’t understand grief over an animal. They’ve enriched my life to no end.

Thanks for taking a moment to hear about losing my silly, happy, goofy, cuddly Milo. Some loss is about love and life and for that I am thankful. I’ll miss you my friend!

xo ~ K

“Not the least hard thing to bear when they go from us, these quiet friends, is that they carry away with them so many years of our own lives.” ~ John Galsworthy

Thankful | Seattle Cat Photography

November 23, 2012January 14, 2016Leave a comment

This may be late in the day to say my ‘thankfuls’ but I honestly try to think of them each and every day; my own experiences have taught me much about what I am grateful for. Holding your past trials close keeps you grateful for your comparative fortune of today, especially when it’s a rough one!

I also know the gratitude of a rescued animal; they don’t need a special day to show you how grateful they are for a warm home and heart, food and safety. You can see it and feel it. Cats are some of the most honest creatures I know; they certainly don’t mess around when it comes to showing you how they feel! I am grateful for the purity of a companion animal’s love and spirit.

I’m more than grateful to the animals that have been in my life – they have given me so much – and to those people who do the powerful work that they do to help animals in need. I’m also thankful to have been given the ability to create art and document with my camera, and for those who support me and my work.

Here’s one of the thankful adult cats who has found a new home (Maybelle, sitting pretty :)…

And my former foster kitty, Licorice, who is hoping ‘Black Friday’ is a lucky day for him at the rescue tomorrow…I hope it’s been a good day for you this Thanksgiving – there is always much to be grateful for…

xo ~ K

“Animals are reliable, many full of love, true in their affections, predictable in their actions, grateful and loyal. Difficult standards for people to live up to.” ~ Alfred A. Montapert