This work is
a collection of photographs taken over the coarse of a year of a colony of
alley cats. I hope to portray their life as accurately as possible and to bring
light to the lives of all feral cats. The reality that they are all individuals,
and that they want the same things we do: food, security, and affection.
My hope is
to change the idea of what an alley cat is. There is a stereotype of a mangy
scrappy animal that is oftentimes mean or vicious. An ugly scavenger, or almost
a pest, likes city rats, or pigeons. There is a huge misconception that feral
cats are diseased, sick, and should be scared away or put down to reduce the
cat population. The cats in this book are the exact opposite of these
stereotypes. These cats are friendly to their human neighbors, and actually
help prevent disease, by keeping the rodent population in check.
A major influence on my work was the
book Abandoned America: The Age of Consequence by Matthew Christopher. It is a
photo book highlighting the decaying places in America, and it has been a huge
aesthetic influence on my work for this book. My setting is an abandoned house
and I have drawn many parallels between his work and mine. I find the pealing
paint and rusting metal offsets the softness of the cats very poignantly,
speaking on how like their house they have been forgotten.
Another
influence was Ernie: A Photographers Memoir by Tony Mendoza. The idea of photographing a cat, in a
thousand different ways, showing the humor and the seriousness in the life of
an animal, and in that way, revealing those aspects in ourselves really spoke to
me.
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