Bored Panda reached out to Marcel to learn more about him and his photography.
First of all, Marcel shared what initially inspired him to start photographing street cats, and how did @chinesewhiskers come to life.
“In the end of 2015 I moved back to Hong Kong and happened to rent a place in Sai Ying Pun, still, very central in Hong Kong but an area that had only started gentrifying as the metro line was extended there that year.
On my way to the station and my regular coffee place I noticed a cat on a counter—took a photo on my phone, and then another. And fairly quickly I saw the potential of this becoming a series that would capture both cats, and the still fairly traditional environment around them.
From then on I would always have my camera on me and kept shooting for about 6 months, resulting in more than enough material to release a book, Shop Cats of Hong Kong, which was published at the end of 2016. By that time the series had gone viral and the book launch was a smashing success. The book has since been updated and got published by the renowned British art book publisher Thames & Hudson and is now available globally.”
Marcel told us more about photographing cats in cities other than Hong Kong, such as Istanbul and how they compare.
“Actually, before expanding the series to Istanbul I traveled extensively to Mainland China and released a book on that too (Shop Cats of China). But in 2023 I moved back to Europe and as Istanbul had been on my radar for a while I was keen to go capture the cats over there.
I’d say the main difference between China and Istanbul is that in Istanbul the cats are omnipresent - they are literally everywhere. While the shop cats in China are really living in the retail environment and ‘owned’ by the shop keepers, the Istanbul cats are kind of a hybrid between strays and pets—they are not owned by anyone, but taken care of by everyone in the community.
This series is therefore not called Shop Cats but rather City Cats of Istanbul and the photo book will be released in summer this year.”
Marcel’s photos often highlight the relationship between cats and urban environments. We were curious about what Marcel believes street cats reveal about the cities they inhabit.
He responded: “I feel it shows a softer side of the cities when these embrace the symbiotic relationship with felines. All cities are first and foremost about humans but the ones that allow this connection with cats to flourish are cities in which the human might still be central but there’s also an awareness that there’s other species on this planet that deserve our love and attention.”
As for particularly memorable or unexpected encounters while photographing cats, Marcel wrote that he had many.
“Quite often I just hang around at a particular spot when I see one cat. More often than not, another cat in the same setting will appear, often seemingly out of nowhere, revealing an even more photogenic situation.
A good example of that is the shot of the black cat sitting on top of black binders (that get used for the typically Hong Kong bamboo scaffolding) is possibly my best shop cat photo. This cat wasn’t there when I arrived, but a brown cat was sleeping on the next stack. Now, I find photographing sleeping cats quite boring so I waited until this cat would wake up. Then suddenly the black cat came out, from the back of the shop, jumped on top of the cable stack and posed for me. Magic!”
Lastly, Marcel added: “Ask - rather: which city (that has a sufficient cat population) should I go photograph next?”
