Most Cleveland music fans know Joe Kleon as the area’s premiere concert photographer. Some may not know he’s as passionate about cats (OK, they might — he’s always sharing photos of his own cats, Geddy and Alex).
Several years ago, he started thinking he’d like to take his talents to a cat shelter as a volunteer photographer and started casting around for one that would welcome what he had to offer. He found the perfect place in Medina’s Kitten Krazy.
“Four years ago I decided I wanted to use my photography skills to help out a local cat rescue,” he recalls. “I am a huge cat lover and I wanted to find a way to use my photography to help cats find forever homes. I sent out emails offering my services to a handful of places. Wendy Mirrotto, the executive director of KK, was a friend of the band Wish You Were Here, who I have worked with for 25 years. She replied, said she loved my concert photography and would love to have me volunteer at KK. Once we met, I knew KK was the perfect place for me to be.”
So every couple of weeks, Kleon heads out to the 14-year-old Medina rescue, where cats roam, mostly uncaged, in multiple rooms, to take pictures of all the adoptable cats to share online through the multiple networks he’s built through his music photography and radio work.
“It’s made a huge difference!” says Mirrotto. “A picture is worth 1,000 adoptions. It’s a catalyst to get people in here. The better the picture, the more reaction there is to it.
After three years of chasing scampering cats around the Kitten Krazy complex and trying to get them to stay in one place long enough to photograph them, Kleon got the idea of building a special studio to improve the quality of his photos.
“I was looking for a way to elevate my pictures beyond just taking them at around the shelter,” he says. “I had just done a few shoots with humans in a photo studio and thought ‘I should build one for our cats at Kitten Krazy!’
Kleon reached out to his friend Gary Stulak, who does home repair and had adopted two Kitten Krazy cats, to execute his concept, which includes interchangeable backdrops, side panels and carpets to create unlimited different looks, and sits on a restaurant cart so it can easily be moved around the shelter and into its various rooms. Gary’s daughter Lacey painted the studio’s distinctive outer design.
“It has its own interior electric lighting, so flash will only be needed for black cats,” he says. “It will make our photography of the cats much more attractive visually and expand on the ways we can present the cats, using holiday backdrops, having groups that volunteer decorate backdrops, etc.”
“I was all for it,” Mirrotto said when Joe told her about his idea. “Whatever Joe wants, he’s the expert. It’s an exciting idea. We’ve talked about the backdrops. I love Paris so I wanted Paris. We talked about doing sports, doing a variety of backdrops for different groups.”
Since starting to work with Kitten Krazy, Kleon has made a major commitment to its work. In addition to photography, he sponsors an annual fundraiser at the beginning of the year where he auctions off some of his best concert photos and donates 100% of the money raised to Kitten Krazy. He’s raised more than $4,300 in three years.
Mirrotto says that Kleon’s music-related network has been a real boon to Kitten Krazy.
“He knows people, and he incorporates the people he knows, and look what happened” she says. That’s what Kitten Crazy is about. It’s not about one person. It’s a collective of good people doing good things.”
Watch a video featuring Kitten Krazy cats here.
See more Kitten Crazy photos here.
Medina, OH 44256