Li Ward photographer of pets and weddings. Fat Orange Cat Studio is a fresh and candid boutique photography service in Boston, Massachusetts.

Here is Sony‘s brother Smokey. He did not hesitate to introduce himself to me.

Hello. My eyes are green too. Greener than Sony’s.

For the first five minutes or so I was not taking any photos, just getting acquainted and talking. Smokey was all do-si-do with his tail in the air, his purr motor going at full tilt, receiving head scratches and giving head butts. He reminded me of my old gray cat from eons ago whom I had inexplicably named Tanny…except she had golden eyes. And was terrified of strangers. Anyway, Sony remained in his chair of choice not caring if he got head scratches or not. Sony might be a tricky one, but for sure it looked like photographing Smokey was going to be a piece of fur-covered cake.

Then I pulled out the camera. That was when Smokey demonstrated his neat trick. Feline teleportation! Now I purr next to you, now I under the bed! ZOINKS!

Sony remained on his chair, unfazed. After some minutes, we tried to tell Smokey it was time for him to come out and take his bow, but his performance under the bed needed more tweaking. It was 50 or more frames of just Sony, the “shy” one, before Smokey finally emerged. But not without much trepidation. Poor kitty!

Hey, what about all those head butts? Remember how I made you purr? I thought we had something going!

Becky, their owner, was surprised that their personalities apparently went topsy-turvy, and she’s known them for 15 years. Ah yes. Cats. They’re very complicated peoples.

So Smokey was continuously teleporting throughout the shoot. I was afraid I wasn’t going to be able to represent him well. But with a little patience and a lot of catnip, I think we managed to coax out his inner model. And even his inner kitten! Yay!

I love how cat eyes dilate to the size of ink wells, and ears point forward when they’re on the hunt. And then in the next second, they’re back to chillin’.

Thanks to Meredith for setting up this shoot for her mom, Becky, as a birthday and Mother’s Day gift! And thanks to Becky for offering me something to drink in the form of a glass of white wine. It was a hot almost-summer’s day and the chilled wine was very refreshing, more so than the other possible/non-alcoholic drinks of choice. (Warning: do not offer me a DRINK drink unless you really mean it!)

And that’s a wrap.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 3rd, 2009 at 3:45 pm and is filed under Cats. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

Tags: cat photography