Chanan Photography is a husband and wife team who has created
a niche for specialized cat photography over the past 30 years.
Their work is world renown in the Cat Fancy as "The Best".
Combining extreme patience with both the animals and the owners,
and with an extensive knowledge of cat behavior, breed and show
conformation, their efforts to show every animal as a good
representation of its breed often earn the comment "he never
looked so good".

Richard and Nancy met while attending college at California
Polytechnic University in Pomona California. Richard was studying
biology, and Nancy social science. They met at the Arabian Horse
Unit on campus when Richard was working part time on the feed
crew, and Nancy was training a young filly. They double dated with
two other members of the feed crew, one of whom is still Nancy's
best friend. About two years later they married on June 10th 1972.

They share a common love of animals and of cats in particular.
Nancy was raised in a household that always had at least one cat,
and Richard had been around no less than five his whole life. When
Richard's mother began breeding show cats in 1963, Richard's
exposure to cats increased radically.

Richard got a part time job in college doing "kidnapping", (door to
door baby photography), working for a very sleazy operator in San
Bernardino California. One day Richard and Nancy went to visit
Richard's mother at a cat show nearby, and Richard took his
camera. His mother asked him to take some pictures of her cats, as
did a few other people at the show. With Nancy's help Richard
photographed perhaps six cats at that show. Reflecting back on his
teens when he had attended lots of shows with his mother, Richard
could only recall seeing three photographers at cat shows ever.
One had been doing Polaroid Buttons, one Key Chain Viewers,
and only once had he seen anybody doing portraiture.

From the demand at that show where all they had was a camera,
and a single light, Richard thought that there might be a market in
doing photography of cats for breeders at the cat shows, so
Richard and Nancy decided to try another cat show with
backgrounds, and lights expressly to take cat photos. Their first cat
show was in a National Guard Armory Hall where no vendors
were allowed. As they could not charge for the photos that they
were going to take (terms of usage of the hall), they took all the photos for free, and charged only 25 cents for postage to mail out the photos. That first cat show in November of 1976, was an American Cat Association show in Glendale California. Since that date, they have been the show photographers at over 900 cat shows throughout the United States,  Canada, Europe and Asia..

"Chanan" was coined by Richard's mother (Dorothy Katris -
Ricadoro Himalayans & Persians) one day when she commented
that "R.J. Katris Photography", the name under which they had
been doing their photography at the time gave no credit to Nancy
who did half of the work, by getting the animals in position to
photograph. She suggested "CHA" from RiCHArd, and "NAN"
from NANcy. Using a well founded tradition in the Cat Fancy of
combining names to form Cattery names, CHANAN Photography
was born.

Over the next four years, their business grew exponentially.
Borrowed equipment was replaced with new better equipment and
Nancy was eventually able to quit her job with the State of
California, and work full time with the business. In 1987 they
moved into a larger home with facilities for a studio and office
separate from their living quarters, and continued to expand their
business with a more compact studio that could be taken by air
from show to show.

Richard typically flies to about 20 of the 30 cat shows that he
attends each year. Currently they photograph at shows from
Kyoto to Amsterdam, from Edmonton to Washington DC, and
from Wailua to Boca Raton. They photograph about 2000 sittings
per year. Their portfolio today contains about 600,000 photos of
cats. Since 1976 they have photographed about 50,000 different
cats. Richard and Nancy have been the official photographers at
Annual Banquets for The International Cat Association (TICA) in
thirteen years, at all the Cat Fanciers Association (CFA) Annuals
since 1985, and have covered the UCF, and ACFA annuals twice
each. Richard has given lectures twice at Cat Symposia at UCLA
as an expert on the Photography of Cats.

While their work is best known in the United States, they have
clients in Europe, Japan, Hong Kong, and Australia as well. They
have supplied the Cat Fanciers Association photos being used
currently for a traveling exhibit on Cats (Cats -Wild to Mild) for the
Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History.

Chanan Photography regularly contributes to books and magazines
throughout the world. They are currently contributors to Pet Life Magazine, Your Cat, The CFA Almanac, Cat Fancy,  Cats USA and
Caes & Cia (a Brazilian publication). They have worked on over
50 books and three encyclopedias with publishers based in France,
Italy, Japan, England, Australia, Brazil, and the United States.

Books they have worked on have been published in as many as
seven languages. Their work has been used by major pet food and
pet product manufacturers including Kal Kan, Carnation, Purina,
St. Jon Labs, Cardinal Labs, Cats Pride, CFA Inc., Royal Canin, and the Iams Corporation.

On January 5th of 1992 after more than 19 years of marriage, and
seven intense years of trying to conceive, their daughter Julia Ariana
was born. Richard, Nancy, and Julia share their home on 3.3
acres, on a hill, 50 miles east of Los Angeles-California with their
current menagerie of pets which includes eight cats, two dogs, a
donkey, three horses and a bird.

With 95% of their income derived entirely from the photography of
show cats at cat shows, they remain uniquely dedicated to the
show cat and the cat fancy. When not on the road or at shows,
(Richard spends over 80 days a year traveling), Richard and Nancy
routinely put in 16 hour days in the office and on the computer as
they do all of their own print preparation work.

Over the past three years, Richard has been trying to stay abreast
of new areas in digital photography in order to deliver a better
product in a more timely manner than all the custom darkroom work
has allowed.  This has finally paid off in much faster turn-around in the last year..

Chanan Photography P.O.Box 6 Mira Loma, CA. 91752-0006
Richard and Nancy and Julia Katris (951) 685-2739 fax, phone,
skype—"chananone"  answering machine--occasionally people.