How to Prepare for Your Cat Photography Session

You’ve booked a Seattle Cat Photography session with me and your session date is arriving soon. How can you prepare yourself, your home, and your cat for the special day?

Prepare Yourself

-Stay calm. You shouldn’t be stressed out before our session, cats can pickup on how your feeling and we want your cat to feel calm and relaxed.

-Don’t wear any new perfumes or use any new hair or skin products. Your cat will look to you for comfort during our session and they need you to be consistent and the same as they are used to.

-Get a good nights sleep the night before. Depending on the personality of your cat, we may need you to participate during the entire duration of the session to ensure your cat feels safe and comfortable. Sessions can last a few hours, so make sure you are feeling rested and ready to go!

-If you want photos of yourself with your cat please wear clothes that you feel comfortable in. What does this mean? Wear something in your style, we want your personality to shine through as well! I can help you pick out some outfits during our pre-session consultation.

Prepare Your Home

Most of my clients choose to have the photo session in their own homes since this is where their cat feels most comfortable. If this is the case for you, please follow these steps to prepare.

-Put away anything that may distract your cat. Don’t vacuum the day of your session if your cat is afraid of the vacuum cleaner (do it the day before if you want to). Don’t turn on the washer or dryer or anything that creates loud noise. Put the dog or any other pets away so that they don’t distract your cat.

-Scout out a couple areas in your home. We can do this together during our pre-session consultation zoom meeting, but take a look around your home and find some areas that may make for nice spots to set up. Anywhere near a window with good natural light is the most ideal.

-Choose your furniture. Not every cat is going to sit on the backdrops I bring. For some cats it is too overwhelming and they want nothing to do with it. If this ends up being the case for your cat, look around your house and find a nice chair, couch, bench, stool, or shelf that your cat likes to hang out on. We can set this up to create a nice environment for your cat’s photo session. You can see an example of that here. The cat in that image felt comfortable enough in that chair to sit there while I took some photos.

-Don’t leave anything out that your cat may eat. You probably already know this, but this means hair ties, ribbons, small doo-dads, poisonous plants. We don’t want to have to make a trip to the emergency vet.

-Make sure they can access their litter box. If their litter box is in a room with a door, make sure that door is open. If you need to change the litter box, I recommend doing so a day or two beforehand so that they have time to get familiar with the new litter smell before our session. Cats and their noses are incredibly sensitive so we don’t want to create any sudden changes the day of our session.

Prepare Your Cat

-Brush or clean your cat. Most cats are excellent at grooming themselves, but if you want to go the extra mile I recommend either brushing or grooming your cat a day or two before our session. Once again, we don’t want to create any changes to the cat’s routine the day of our session. If they need their nails clipped or any mats cut off, please do so at least 24 hours before our session date.

-Feed your cat—but not too much. A fed cat is a happy cat, so make sure they aren’t having to operate on an empty stomach. I will provide treats in order to try to coax them onto the backdrop though, so don’t over feed them. We also don’t want them to have an upset stomach.

-Keep their routine consistent. This is especially important the day of our session, but is good practice for the few days leading up to it as well. We do not want your cat to be stressed out or feeling uncomfortable.

-Do not schedule a vet appointment within the same week. Most cats hate the vet and we want our session date to be as far away from their vet appointments as possible. I recommend not even scheduling our session within the same week as a vet appointment.

-Gather their favorite toys and treats. These will be important during our session.

-Play with your cat. Tiring your cat out before I get there can be a good idea. If they are tired they are more likely to lay down and sit still during our session. We want to avoid too many cases of the zoomies if possible.

-Do not put clothes on your cat if they are not already used to wearing them. Again, cats are all about routine. Dressing them up can make for some cute photos, sure. But if they aren’t used to wearing clothes it can just make them angry and scared. Please avoid dressing them up if they are not comfortable with it.

-Give them lots of love and make them feel comfortable. This whole day will be about minimizing their stress levels so that we can get the best photos possible. Think of it as a little relaxing spa day for your cat, but with a photographer there to capture it. It is likely they will already feel a little stressed with me coming into the house and setting up all of my gear. Anything we can do to keep them as calm as possible the day of will be really helpful.