Cooper Cross, Cat Photographer

I don’t care if you’re not a cat person, this is cool.  Cooper the cat is a former stray tabby living in Greenwood who has been documenting his daily adventures via a “cat cam” attached to his collar for a year now.  The tiny artist now has his own popular Flickr album and has been featured in profiles in the Seattle P-I and Seattle Weekly. He was also recently featured in the premier episode of Animal Planet’s “Cats 101” this Saturday evening—a classic rags-to-riches story!

Of course, Cooper doesn’t exactly have an artistic vision the way we typically think of it (the cat cam takes a digital snapshot automatically every 2 minutes), but his photos do reveal a fresh perspective on everyday neighborhood sights.  Cooper's kitty camera project started as an experiment when his filmmaker owners, Michael and Deirdre Cross, grew curious about their pet’s activities.

"We found out on the very first roll that yes, he goes into a lot of yards and streets," Michael Cross said in the P-I article. "These were just beautiful shots... It became its own documentary art form."  He told Seattle Weekly, “It's interesting that something completely arbitrary can have such a beautiful result. It really changed my view on what art is, how it can be conceived and how it's interpreted."