A few weekends ago, I joined some friends at an animal shelter in Johor Bahru with one goal in mind - snap some nice portraits of rescue cats so that they can have a fighting chance in being adopted.

To be honest, it was my first time working at an animal shelter, and I was caught off-guard by how much help these animals needed. Since it was a not-for-profit organisation, it was almost fully run by volunteers and donations. Despite the less than desirable living conditions, the volunteers come in week after week to clean up the place, and most of the animals were still extremely sweet and friendly.

As the cats are hardly allowed to leave their cages, they tended to be skittish, especially strays that have been rescued. While clawing for attention when we walked past their cages, once we brought them out to be photographed, they bolted around the room, making it challenging to capture "good" portrait shots of them. Luckily most of them were food and/or snack motivated, and we could bribe them with snacks.

Abandoned house cats on the other hand were calmer, and more comfortable with the human touch. But they were less food-motivated, and coaxing them to come out into the room to play was more difficult. 

Despite that, we managed to complete the task for quite a few of the cats, and will be going back in again soon. If you're based in Singapore or Malaysia, and are keen to adopt/donate/volunteer, please reach out to me and I'll link you up with the shelter to find out more.