This zine shows the struggles of street cats by turning strays into cover stars
A new zine is rejecting the internet’s love of cute cat content to reveal the gritty life of stray felines.
Made by Berlin-based Russian photographer Nikita Teryoshin, the first issue of Backyard Diaries includes pictures of stray cats surviving in St Petersburg. He says he was inspired to create the zine while living in a friend’s apartment last summer, when he saw wild cats living in the courtyard outside.
“I was really surprised about what interesting characters they were, marked by life, compared to the expensive cat breeds I knew from some cat shows. So I decided to follow their paths for a while,” Teruoshin told The Calvert Journal.
Some of the felines featured in the zine have illnesses and disabilities, and move across unglamorous spaces, like drainpipes and discarded boxes.
The artist employed a medium format Leica S for most of his pictures, a high end camera often used in fashion and advertising. “My idea was to use it to show the most unprivileged creatures and to make them more visible,” he added. “The zine has no cute cat content. Instead, it shows the real struggle of cats, as well as beautiful moments of cohesion.”
The next issues of Backyard Diaries will show the unglamorous life of cats in other big cities, such as Bangkok and Atlantic City.
Get your copy here.
