One day, my wife and I had the idea to create a calendar featuring cats. Since we had some connections with an animal shelter, it was easy to arrange a photo shoot.
At the “Murkosha” shelter, we had access to around 500 cats. However, we didn’t have a dedicated space for the shoot, so we ended up taking photos in the shelter’s hallway. The concept was to create a humorous guide on how to “use” a cat. When you adopt a cat from a shelter, you might need some tips on how to care for them. That’s why we named the calendar “Cat: User Manual (Illustrated Tips for a Whole Year).”
We depicted various everyday scenarios, like watching Netflix, ironing clothes, cooking soup, doing home repairs, working on a laptop etc. We brought an entire carload of props—everything from pots and towels to books and shoes. By the way, we even sketched out the ideas for the photos beforehand.
The captions for the illustrations were written by my university supervisor, Oksana Mikhailovna Isachenko. It turned out to be an amazing collaboration!
In the end, we sold all the calendars and raised enough money to cover an expensive surgery for one cat. We were thrilled to find out that every cat featured in the calendar was adopted shortly after, even those that had been at the shelter for one or two years.
