Last weekend, we were on our way to a street fair downtown, so we took the train to Union Square. I saw that tents were set up on the 17th Street side and decided to investigate. It turned out to be an animal adoption fair. Oh, calamity! My sister-in-law and I kept having to retrieve our respective charges (my niece, my wife) from drooling over various dogs wearing “adopt me!” vests (the dogs, not our people). We’d nearly made it all the way through to the end, when my niece uttered yet another “awwwww,” and I turned to see kittens. Crates and crates of kittens. I felt myself being drawn in, powerless to stay away, when Beloved grabbed me by the scruff of my neck and dragged me away. That was a close one! I thought it would be better to view cute animals at a safe distance.

When fashion stylist Ryen Blaschke and photographer Shaina Fishman first met, they knew instantly that they wanted to work together. Given their interests, you might expect that they would want to work on a fashion-related project. Nope. Instead, they instantly conceived of a project to bring awareness to the often-overlooked issue of cat rescue. 3.4 Million cats enter shelters in the U.S. every year. Working in connection with Brooklyn Animal Action, Blaschke and Fishman are doing what they can to help some of those animals find homes.

You can follow Fishman and Blaschke on their respective websites.

All images property of Ryen Blaschke and Shaina Fishman.