An Aspect of Cat Photography

Cat photography is often challenging if you want to create something special. Cats, particularly active cats such as the Savannah, need to be entertained with a cat tease (a feather on a stick) while photographing them. This way you can manoeuvre them into a good position. But not always. It can take two people. One on the tease and the other taking the photo. This is how Ken and Helmi Flick work.

Kathrin Stucki, owner with her husband, Martin, of A1 Savannahs, does her own cat photography - on her own. That is tricky. It is high class photography of high class cats.

Below she describes how she managed to get Jazz, the cat you see above, to cooperate

"Jazz:Well, Jazz’s pictures are deceiving. He isn’t the mellow couch potato that he appears to be. The images are a result of hard work and a lot of sweat, well, at least for me.

Jazz is very active, curious and fast moving. When I first started taking pictures of him, I had either only a part of the tail or nothing at all on the picture. Teasing a cat with a feather stick during a photo shoot usually gives the photographer some control over the movements of the cat. Not so, if the cat is a Savannah and thinks that it can never let go of the feathery thing in its mouth no matter what happens around him.

Trying to take pictures without a feather teaser didn’t work either because sweet Jazz was jumping down the “cat walk” to rub on my legs and look for little red “Tweetie” again.

I ended up going in the yard to exercise Jazz with the red feather ball on a string. He jumped like a rabbit, higher and faster and full of energy. Chasing his toy, grass hoppers and his own tail at the same time until he crashed in the tall grass, panting and with his broken off feather stick trophy right beside him.

That was my time. Now I could pick him up and put him back on the “cat walk”. He wouldn’t get back up again but at least he laid there for me, proud and with his head up high like a male lion that has just brought home dinner for the whole pride. The photo shoot went smooth and the pictures came out quite nice, I think......"

I think they came out better than nice - they are great!