I have a bit of experience with this, is one of the things I want to profile myself to. I don't do it professionally, but I had pretty good results.
Eye level. Shoot from Cat's eye level most of the time, above looks amateurish
Have some lights if you can. Two lights and a rim light help a lot. But you don't need to have lights.
Catchlights are important like in portraits.
Do a backdrop. You can do a small-ish one from a folding table and PVC pipes.
Patience. A lot of patience. So I did a friend's dog, and I was shocked how easy it was. They said sit, and the dog just... sat and posed.
My cats are... well cats. I put them in front of the backdrop. They turn around. One climbed the softbox. The other started running and almost hit the camera.
Assistant. This helps a lot. Have someone help you by guiding the cats where to look. It's hard to do both, but if you do both shoot thorough LCD not viewfinder. Nikons have an option that when you touch LCD to focus and shoot, you can do that and set it to burst.
Cans with rice. I used some old 35mm film cans and half-filled with rice. When you wiggle that the kitties will look in that direction, so your assistant can use that. Of course, being cats, they will get bored of it, so you take another can and fill it with coins.
So there's two aspects, like in human portraits. The technical part (lights, lenses, composition) and the posing part. I will honestly say that it's harder to get a good picture of a cat than of a human, because, surprise, cat's don't pose.
I have a bit of experience with this, is one of the things I want to profile myself to. I don't do it professionally, but I had pretty good results.
Eye level. Shoot from Cat's eye level most of the time, above looks amateurish
Have some lights if you can. Two lights and a rim light help a lot. But you don't need to have lights.
Catchlights are important like in portraits.
Do a backdrop. You can do a small-ish one from a folding table and PVC pipes.
My cats are... well cats. I put them in front of the backdrop. They turn around. One climbed the softbox. The other started running and almost hit the camera.
Assistant. This helps a lot. Have someone help you by guiding the cats where to look. It's hard to do both, but if you do both shoot thorough LCD not viewfinder. Nikons have an option that when you touch LCD to focus and shoot, you can do that and set it to burst.
Cans with rice. I used some old 35mm film cans and half-filled with rice. When you wiggle that the kitties will look in that direction, so your assistant can use that. Of course, being cats, they will get bored of it, so you take another can and fill it with coins.
So there's two aspects, like in human portraits. The technical part (lights, lenses, composition) and the posing part. I will honestly say that it's harder to get a good picture of a cat than of a human, because, surprise, cat's don't pose.