The Essential Cat by Thomas Wester
The author, Thomas Wester, is a Swedish photographer with a splendid love ofcats. Cats have been his subject of choice for over twenty years. He started his photography at the end of the 1960's and five years later he acquired his first cat. His love and interest in cats escalated from then on. Wester was encouraged in his work by friends and colleagues and many of his pictures were published in magazines and newspapers. When he found that more people were writing to him about his cat photographs than any of his other pictures, he started to think about publishing a book of photographs of cats.
In putting together this book, his aim was to draw away from the common trend of photographing 'cuddly kittens in full colour with silk bows, sitting on turquoise paper', similar to those seen in today's coffee table books. He wanted to take photographs of cats in their natural surroundings, in natural poses, simply going about their everyday life.