My wife and I foster wild kittens and find them good homes. As you might imagine, I photograph many of these kittens and although I use a range of equipment for this type of shoot, there is one essential that makes it all possible—a kitten wrangler.

Kittens have two natural states—playing and sleeping. There is little in between. Photographing a sleeping kitten is pretty easy, but capturing kittens in motion takes a lot of hands. My office manager usually takes the job of kitten wrangler, confining our models to a particular area, which is either dictated by lighting or props. We decide on the boundary of the shooting area and it is the wrangler’s job to make sure kittens stay within those bounds.  Kittens can only be controlled to a certain point, but a wrangler ensures that the models will remain in the frame at least. Beyond that, it’s a game of luck—and lots of fun, of course.

Tweet