Documentary Style Photos A 2025 Trend

You might be wondering, “What exactly is documentary style photography, especially when it comes to capturing the cats I love”? At first glance, it might seem a bit intimidating or too “real life” for you and your cats, but, don’t worry – this 2025 photography trend is all about embracing the real moments of everyday life, and it’s more approachable than it sounds!

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• Read last week’s Trends Review here.

Defining Documentary Style

You can easily join in on this trend by creating your own unique body of work. View it as an ongoing project where you document the joys, challenges, and distinct personalities of the cats around you. Here are a few ideas to get started:

• Intimate Portraits: Capture the unique features and expressions of each cat.
• Candid Snapshots: Snap them in action during playtime or napping in their favorite spots.
• Poignant Rescue Stories: Share the journey of rescue cats finding their forever homes.
• Creative Collages: Combine multiple images to tell a broader story or theme.

This photograph will be a happy memory for the little girl’s parents, documenting her meeting with our boy Taz.

Do You Need Fancy Equipment?

The increasing quality of smartphones, mirrorless automatic eye focus cameras and the resurgence of film cameras allows everyone to record personal stories, triumphs and struggles on your own terms. No rules, no constraints. Use what you have and take lots of photos (the more you take the more you have to choose from to tell your story).

• Remember You are telling your story, you are reporter, advocate and cat lover all in one.

Basic Camera Knowledge – ISO, Exposure, Aperture, Editing

Starting a Documentary Photo Project

The documentary style in photography looks to capture your viewers attention by focusing on the story you want to tell. By using a shallow depth of field, you can isolate your subject – whether it’s your cat or a fleeting moment – against a blurred background. This intentional blurring reduces distractions and makes sure that your viewer’s attention stays focused on your primary subject.

Here’s the shallow depth of field blur in place featuring Toulouse’s butt (!) It is part of a series documenting his recovery from a serious urinary infection when he was shaved for a major operation.

If you need some inspiration to kickstart your journey, here’s an easy project to step into documentary style cat photography yourself.

This is mostly for DSLR/Mirrorless users because it uses ‘shallow depth of field‘. The shallow depth of field technique helps you tell a story and focus on a distinctive action, look or glance with deliberate focus and intention. Using it takes a bit of practice but it’s a very effective technique.

(Smartphone users can try Portrait Mode on their device for a similar effect).

This is a capture of simple playful joy. Taken from below it makes Tax, our black cat, look much taller as he reaches to play with cat dad’s hand.

Project Notes

Using this definition from Photography Life, for a shallow depth of field you will need to use a wide aperture such as f1.8 to f2.8. This will keep only a narrow slice of your view in focus. Imagine it as being a short distance from your cat’s paws to its back, with everything else blurred. The technical term for the sort focus area is bokeh.

Depth of field is the distance between the closest and farthest objects in a photo that appears acceptably sharp.

Photography Life

Technical note: The range of your depth of field is controlled by your camera and lens. How much you can adjust your settings depends on what camera you have. No, not the brand but the more technical specifications. My two favourite lenses are my 55/250mm Zoom (f5.6) and my 50 mm Prime lens (f1.8). Neither are very expensive but both take wonderful depth of field photographs.

Shallow Depth of Field Explanation

These photographs show my 50 mm ‘nifty fifty’ and larger 55/250 mm in action. I always recommend the 50mm lens as it is not expensive and gives you a whole new perspective on taking cat photos.

The second photograph, of Jack our ginger senior, is taken from much further away. This uses my 55/250mm zoom lens. I have also edited the photo to enhance his rich ginger colouring.

Documentary Summary

This is a trend you can embrace 100% because you are recording real life, real fun and the cats you love. People want to see more of this and less of the cute fuzzy AI kittens flying on angel wings. Telling your story, as an adventure or a ‘day in the life of’ resonates with everyone. Give the documentary approach a try.