Masayuki’s journey began by chance. “It was New Year’s Eve, and I was very exhausted. I went to a nearby park to have a break, where I met a cat in the middle of the road. From the time I met it, the course of my life changed greatly,” he once told Bored Panda. That cat — Busanyan Senpai — became his first muse and the reason he picked up his camera the next day. “The more I looked at the cat, the bigger an urge I felt to photograph it. A passion was born in my heart.”
Since then, Oki has spent countless hours walking through Tokyo’s backstreets and traveling to Japan’s “cat islands” to meet and photograph new feline faces. He says each cat teaches him something different. “Sometimes I feel as if the cats are telling me to capture the moment, making them my photography teachers,” he shared. “Once you know the quirks, you can predict the future and find the best shooting position.”
But photographing cats isn’t always easy. In recent years, Oki has noticed that the number of stray cats in Tokyo has been decreasing due to TNR (Trap-Neuter-Return) efforts. “Lately, the number of cats I photograph in Tokyo has been decreasing... As a result, my photography days have also decreased, and I often go more to check on the cats’ well-being rather than to photograph them.” Still, he makes time to visit cat islands for longer photo trips, photographing “relentlessly from sunrise to sunset.”
Through all these years, his motivation has stayed the same. “I've always hoped that my cat photos would bring happiness to people around the world, and I approach my photography with that belief,” Oki said. “It might sound laughable, but my feelings about this haven’t changed.”
