Photographing the Largest Cat Expo in the World for National Geographic

National Geographic thought I needed more cats in my life.

Oct 24, 2025

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National Geographic thought I needed more cats in my life, so they sent me to the world’s largest cat show in Cleveland, Ohio. The Cat Fancier Association International Cat Show was a two-day cat extravaganza featuring 550 felines and 10,000 visitors. The immaculately coiffed cats were well-behaved and calm in the face of adoring hordes decked out in every kind of cat swag imaginable. There was also cat karaoke, with performers dressed up in tail-whisker costumes and bellowing out Bohemian Rhapsody for the rapturous audience. I’ve seen some strange things.

Most of the competing cats had a pedigree that would make the Windsors jealous, going tail to tail in categories such as Allbreed Kitten, Persian, or Shorthair divisions. There was also a household pet category, adding an egalitarian flair by featuring mutts and adopted cats. This year, it had an influx of entries, making Household Pet the toughest competition to beat.

Marvick, a 9 years old adopted cat with deformed paws won the Household Pet competition.

I floated the idea of featuring a cat show at the National Geographic annual conference in DC back in February. The editors asked what I’d like to work on this year, and my answer was unequivocal: “cats.” While the Westminster Dog Show gets featured in publications every year (I photographed it twice, once for Nat Geo), cat shows get minimal exposure. I could only find one photo essay by the brilliant Landon Nordeman covering the Cat Expo for Vogue a few years back. The Nat Geo editors agreed that cats deserve more visibility, and we sat in wait for the right project.

Though I expected the shoot to be an indecent amount of fun, I also knew it was not going to be easy. Two obstacles stood in my way: suppressing the urge to hug every cat and resisting the temptation to take cute photos. Of course, photos of cats will always be some kind of cute, but I wanted to hit other emotional notes — surreal, quirky, humorous, and unsettling. Psychological tension was the main criterion during both photographing and editing, forcing me to part (kicking and screaming) with the loveliest of cats if they didn’t contain all the needed layers.

Here is an example. Photo on left, CUTE (cut)/ Photo on right, slightly disturbing (yey)

The first day, I focused on the cats’ personalities and behavior, which were, overall, freakishly civilized. Whenever the owners saw my camera, eager to please they dangled feathers in pursuit of Instagram-worthy cherubic sweetness. Instead, I was looking for cracks in the well-mannered façade. Every so often, a loud meow would break out from the otherwise quiet group of felines, and I ran to find the culprit doing cat things — scratching, biting, and being mischievous. These small revolts were reminders that this was not just a pageant, but a negotiation between species.

On the second day, I swerved my camera to the people who had made the pilgrimage, the cat owners, the breeders, and every kind of cat lover imaginable, some traveling from as far as Hong Kong and Belgium. In past newsletters, I’ve written about photographing subjects watching magic, and how those expressions are impossible to recreate. In Cleveland, I realized that the same could be said about people looking at cats. Just like with magic, the reaction is instinctual, a mix of awe, delight, and longing that dissolves everything else for a moment and transcends age, race, sex, and politics.

Besides the joy of being surrounded by hundreds of cats, the Cat Expo seduced me with the warmth of a community united by passion to feline companions. It was moving to watch how people handled their pets, cradling them like precious objects, keeping them warm and comfortable, even getting teary-eyed now and then. The love in the room was palpable. There was also an adoption section, and by the end of the Expo, most of the cats and kittens had found new homes.

For all the absurdity of a cat beauty pageant, this was one of the most heartfelt gatherings I’ve photographed. For two days, there were no headlines, no doomscrolling, only the hypnotic purr of cats and the crowd’s gushing devotion. It felt ridiculous and entirely necessary at once, a fleeting utopia that smelled faintly of litter and cat love.