A portrait of his late cat, put up on a wall in his house by his wife, started to intrigue American artist Elliot Ross. The cat seemed to stare right at him. Ross wondered if the cat had consciously looked into the camera when the photo was taken. What the cat was thinking at that time. In what way the consciousness of an animal differentiated from that of a human being.

In a quest to try and find the answers, Ross turned his thoughts and wonderings into a project: Animal. Around the world he portrayed animals and discarded the surroundings afterwards to make the portraits more isolated and powerful.