Meet the feline photographer who gives shelter cats their close-ups 

Kiwi was not ready for his close-up. 

But Jeffrey Ogburn has worked with camera-shy subjects before. 

“Kiwi!” he called to the 1½-month-old kitten while shaking a toy. 

A pss-pss-pss is a common tactic to get a cat’s attention, but Ogburn went with something closer to a mouth-fart — a Plllt! — to get a passing look from the cat.

For a half-second, Kiwi looked forward. Click. Ogburn had his shot. 

Ogburn is a photographer with a specific assignment. Since 2010, Ogburn, 74, has been the volunteer photographer for the Greenhill Humane Society’s cattery. 

Shelter staff take quick mugshots upon intake. Often, the cats are seen cowering in the corners of their new confines. Ogburn’s photos go beyond identification. He tries to capture glimpses of a cat’s personality, a bid for attention as people peruse online for a potential pet. 

On many occasions, those cats — 3,540 in 2025 — are coming into Greenhill from any number of difficult situations: feral, rescued from a hoarder situation (68 cats were recently rescued from one Marcola house), found alone outside, left behind by an owner who has died or no longer been able to take care of the cat, in need of medical attention. 

They all get photos, what Ogburn calls “the sales pitch.” That requires cajoling shut-down cats to look into the camera and open up — with toys, treats, and acting a fool. 

“One of the joys of doing this is finding the cat who’s unfriendly, and making them my friend,” he said, before adopting a cartoonish voice for the cat. “‘Oh, you’re OK. You know where all the scritchy places are.’” 

Cat photography tips

When he comes to Greenhill for his weekly shift, there’s a sheet with his assigned cats for the day.

On a recent Thursday, it included Kiwi, his siblings Cherry and Peaches, the bonded pairs Edward and Jacob (after the “Twilight” hunks), and Fur Elise and Moonlight Sonata (after the Beethoven pieces), as well as a chunky, sweet and nervous 12-year-old named Lady Lasagna.

Devin Sharp, Greenhill’s outreach coordinator, said Ogburn’s photos tell a story without words. The shelter staff’s mugshots come after an animal has been displaced, subjected to routine checkups and shaves ahead of medical care. Often, the photo shows a cat at its most fearful. Not with Ogburn.

“He’s able to sit and hang out with them, kind of coax them out with treats and get them normalized to him being in there so they can really show off more of who they are, that staff sometimes doesn’t have the time to just sit and do,” Sharp said.

There are few cat photography horror stories (apart from the time a cat jumped on the camera and it hit the floor, breaking a $300 lens). Kittens are the most fun to photograph, even if they’re evasive. But Ogburn likes that they can be difficult. He said his favorite thing about a cat is they’re not afraid to “say f–k off.”

“Dogs will come when they don’t want to,” he said. “A cat says, ‘You and what army?’”

A life spent loving cats (after some convincing)

Greenhill is not the only long-term, cat-adjacent passion for Ogburn. He’s hosted a jazz radio show on KLCC for 50 years. His logo is a cat listening to a gramophone, inspired by the famous “His Master’s Voice” logo for RCA, a drawing of a puzzled dog looking into a phonograph. 

He also used it for his record store, Cat’s Meow Jazz and Blues, that he owned and operated in Eugene for more than 25 years. One young customer, he recalled, counted 210 cats in the store’s decór.

Funny enough, he grew up with dogs. He became a cat lover after meeting his wife Deborah at the University of the Pacific in Stockton, California. He followed her to Eugene when she transferred to the University of Oregon, and the couple has lived in town for 53 years. 

“I wasn’t consciously trying to,” she said of her husband’s conversion to cats. She actually started volunteering at Greenhill first, and still does as an adoption counselor. On Thursday, she sat with Lady Lasagna before her portraits.

Cats have another role for Ogburn that motivates him to give back. They keep him honest. 

He’s been sober for the last 39 years. He credits that in part to cats like Mr. Spoo, who he and Deborah owned in the 1970s. Mr. Spoo loved shrimp. The smell of Ogburn peeling some downstairs would rouse him from sleep and summon the feline to the kitchen. 

But Ogburn was still drinking then. When he would walk into their house after he had a few, Mr. Spoo would refuse to go near him.

“I could fool Debbie about my drinking,” he said. “I couldn’t fool that cat.”