How To Shoot Stray Cats In Japan

With a camera! Oh, God, with a camera…

I like taking photos, I love Japan, and I adore cats, which is fabulous because this country has an abundance of them. You’ll find them roaming the streets and the alleys, the parks and the playgrounds, all strutting around like they own the place. Based on all the Hello Kitty merch I’ve seen around here, they probably do.

The abundance of stray cats in Japan has inadvertently sparked a rather bizarre hobby of mine. It involves arriving in a new town, hunting them down, and shooting them with my camera. Not only is it a great way to explore somewhere new but it gives you something to post on social media that your friends at home actually care about.

I’m not sure why Japan has so many stray cats. I’m not a cat whisperer, I can’t ask them. I do know that there is an old superstition in Japan where if a cat is raised for seven years or longer, the cat will kill the person who raised them, though I doubt anyone still believes that. If you’ve ever owned a cat, you know that you don’t get rid of your cat, your cat gets rid of you.

The cats here appear to be well-loved and well-looked after, mostly thanks to the elderly population who care for them. This includes feeding them, scratching them, and building shelters to keep them from the cold, wind, and rain, meaning that stray cats in Japan are treated better than homeless people back in Australia.

But I digress.

This is about shooting cats [with a camera] and if you, too, are a weirdo, and want to walk around the streets of Japan taking photos of cats like I do, then I’ve put together a little guide to help you get started. Know that this isn’t an exact science but when it comes to travel [or cats, for that matter], nothing ever is.

Locating the cats

To take a photo of the cat, one must first find the cat, and finding cats isn’t always easy. Sometimes, cats don’t want to be found. You’ll be walking down a dimly lit street between two glowing izakayas when you’ll see one, scurrying through the alleys but by that point, it’s already too late.

In my experience, the best way to find a cat is to go and find the nearest water source. It sounds counterintuitive, I know. You’d think that cats and water would be natural enemies but it seems that they congregate around these places. Go to the rivers, the lakes, anywhere that people gather with a sufficient covering of grass and you should be able to find them there.

Introducing yourself to the locals

Once you locate the cats, it’s important to make sure you assimilate yourself with the cats. They don’t know who you are, they don’t recognise your smell, and so it’s important to introduce yourself accordingly. You wouldn’t like it if some tourist ran up to you and stuck a phone in your face so don’t do it to them. For this, I like to use bait until they get accustomed to me.

Not edible bait, mind you.

I get my wife to go and sit with them. Cats are naturally attracted to her for reasons that are beyond me and so I get her to sit amongst the cats and wait for the cats to come to her. I know, I know, some of you don’t have wives, to which my best advice is to get yourself a wife, use them as bait, and then feel free to discard them when you’re done.

Getting the purrfect shot

I’m kinda ashamed of myself for writing that. It’s making me feel dirty all over. I’m going to need to take a shower or better yet, lick myself clean when I finish writing this article.

Now that the cats know you, it’s about how to capture their essence in one still image. I like my photos to be as true and honest as possible. Something that lands somewhere between a yawn, a sneeze, and a fart, the perfect Venn diagram that I always seem to fall into whenever someone snaps a photo of me.

What camera, lens, and lighting you use is up to you. I know as much about photography as I know about cats, which is to say I know nothing about either. But that’s not to say I haven’t found great joy pursuing both around Japan, stumbling across places and people that I never would have met or seen otherwise.

This country is pure magic. The locals, feline or otherwise, are always happy to welcome you with open arms.