Photographing An Anxious Cat With Perth Pet Photographer Chanelle Megan.
And When Said Cat Actually Cooperates For The Photo Session.
Cats - either you love em or hate ‘em and to be honest, they probably only tolerate you because you provide the food, safety & warmth. So when it comes to taking their photos, they probably could care less and are a whole other vibe compared to our dependable canine companions.
Perth Pet Photographer talks through how she captured these images with her anxious cat.
Taking photos of cats is no easy feat. It requires extra patience and attentiveness than normal and when you add in a bit of anxiety, you never know what you’ll get.
Meet Romeo. Anixious, feisty, a smarty pants who knows what and when he wants, and all mine. If you’ve followed me on socials for long enough, you may have met my anxious grey ball of floof already. He doesn’t do many pats, let alone cuddles (see me trying to force cuddles on him below haha he was not impressed!), but luckily for me, he does work for treats!
If I was to hire another photographer to come to my house to take photos of Romeo, they’d be here for 3 days before he would venture out from under the bed to sniff their hand. When he hears the postie pull up he runs around the house low-growling until he’s found his safety in the dark and under the couch. He’s simply not a people person. Unfortunately for him, I love all things cute animals, dressing up and taking photos, so when one gets a new backdrop, he has no choice but to be my model - I mean, if I had a dog, sure, he may be spared from the role, but for now, he’s the only pet I have to play with and to be my on-call model.
First let’s chat on the new backdrop thing.
When I book studio sessions, normally I would hire out a studio and utilise one of their backdrops they already have, but I wanted to open myself up to the idea of photographing pets in a more ‘pop-up’ environment outside of a normal studio be it, in home, at a market or something else similar, and so I purchased my first paper backdrop. Once I had rolled it out, I quickly learnt that it doesn’t work so well on a soft ground as it punctures the paper easily, but thankfully I had a piece of translucent acrylic that I was able to place on top and was the perfect size to hold my cat. I will need to come up with another solution for bigger dogs, but that’s for another day.
Back to how I managed to get my cat to cooperate in these photos though.
1 word - TREATS. He really is a fiend for his Greenies dental treats. It was probably close to a year ago that I was loving watching everyone do tricks with their dogs and I was feeling a little bit of fomo, so instead of feeling sorry for myself, I thought why not give some tricks a go with Romeo. All I needed was a high value treat and a little bit of patience. Sure enough, as long as the trick didn't involve patting or touching his back, he was open to learning and being rewarded. Fast forward to today and we have ‘paw’, ‘high five’, ‘spin’, ‘through’ (weaving through my legs), ‘pretty’, ‘over’ (jumping through my arms when I make a circle shape with them), ‘wave’, and ‘ten’ (2 high fives at once), and I can get him to do a few in a row before throwing him what he is really after - his treat! So taking these photos of him, required a little bit of speed on my behalf to get into position fast enough, but also at least half a bag of treats. I’d pick him up, plonk him on the acrylic, let him smell and almost taste the treat so that he knew I had one in my hand (because god forbid I trick him - like I mentioned at the start, he’s smart), shuffle back into position and snap away.
Cats are actually very interesting to photograph when compared with dogs. Dogs there’s usually a lot of strange noises being made, different cues being called out to grab their attention, as well as toys and treats on offer. With cats it’s a much quieter affair. Cats are more inclined to pay attention to movement over sounds and actually this is how I first thought to teach Romeo ‘wave.’ I was sitting back one day taking his photo and waving about the arm that held his treat to grab his focus. He then instinctively started to throw is paw up into the air as if he was trying to snatch the treat out of my hand. It’s fast and at times a little snappy, but straight away I was like “awww he’s waving” and so begun the path to the cue ‘wave’ which is really helpful now when I want to take his photo.
All up I think it took about 40 minutes until he’d totally had enough of my games and I was satisfied with what I’d captured. He had run off what felt like a gazillion times, he had bitten into the paper backdrop to show how much he disapproved of having his photo taken, and he’d eaten his weights worth in treats, I mean maybe that last part is a bit of an exaggeration, but you get the drift.
All that’s left to do now is print the photos, although deciding which one or how many for my wall is the actual hard part. What I do know is these portraits are going to look epic on the circle Chromoluxe Metal that I offer to clients. It’s shiny and bold and will really stand out on my wall. I’d love to hear which one or ones you would print if you were me. And if I’ve now got you intrigued about getting some portraits of your own furry feline, then reach out and let’s chat. If your cat is open to human connection (unlike my boy) then there may be a chance that I could come into your home and capture something similar for you.
