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

It was a gloomy, rainy, photographically unfriendly day when I made my way to Charlestown for a kitty shoot. My umbrella turned inside out a few times on the way. Water eeped into my shoes and splashed across my jeans, and I showed up raw, sniffling and shivering and looking like a wartime photographer who was just assailed by a giant sea sponge. But what of it? I was about to meet an orange cat named Teddy. I knew that that cat, through the sheer force of his orangeness, would heal me. He would make everything right again. And he did.

We may have stirred him from his mid-afternoon nap under the covers. That orange cat is smart. Had it been my own home I might have joined him. But today was a day to strike a few poses in front of the camera, so out came Teddy, with the help of catnip infused mice and sparkly toys. Lots and LOTS of sparkly toys (Teddy’s mom let me take home a few for the boys, and we’ve been finding them in our shoes every morning, hee hee). Teddy posed and played and in general just really brought his A game – as would be expected for an orange cat – before we called it a day. Teddy then returned to the comforts of the bedsheets. Which he shares rather unenthusiastically with pretty black kitty named Gidget. We will have Gidget’s photos in a separate post, because for all intents and purposes I did two separate cat shoots. These two refused to share the spotlight!

Thank you, young orange catted Teddy, for a super fun kitty shoot! I’ve missed doing cat shoots! Must do more!

PS I need to give a special shout-out – again – to my D700 + 50mm f1.4 lens. There is a reason why Teddy’s eyes are huge pools of ink in all these photos. He wasn’t scared nor was he pissed off (I don’t think). He was trying to gather any and all available light in the room, just like my camera. I shot with the lens completely dilated at 1.4 the whole time. I can’t speak for Teddy’s eyeballs, but I thought the camera + lens combo did a fabulous job. Those two were the best investments I’ve ever made.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 18th, 2009 at 6:12 pm and is filed under Cats. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.