Want to know how to capture a wacky portrait of your cat? Shoot a photo while they’re shaking themselves clean (or dry). That’s what photographer Carli Davidson did for her new project titled Shake Cats.



Davidson is a 34-year-old Portland-based animal rights activist who found most of her subjects from local animal rescues. After shooting a nice head shot of each cat for the shelter website — which helped them get adopted almost immediately — Davidson gave the cats a grooming session with nail trimmings and ear cleanings, after which the cats would usually shake themselves. If that didn’t do the trick, a few drops of water usually would.

The resulting portraits are wonderfully bizarre-looking:

Davidson has shot nearly 100 cats so far for the Shake Cats project. She’s publishing around 140 of them in a new book that’s coming out on October 27th, 2015.

The photographer is known for her previous projects in this Shake series, which started with adult dogs and then moved on to little puppies. Here’s a behind-the-scenes interview with Davidson that we shared back in 2013.

Image credits: Photographs by Carli Davidson and used with permission