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

Our handsome, orange hero sought out a warm patch of sunlight coming in from the skylight in our bedroom. Which was a mess. Still is a mess. But you can’t see the detritus all around him because I spot metered on him in the very bright light, rendering the rest of the frame black. He’s on his duck rug, floating through space and time!

I had a really fun time at the beach a few weeks ago, meeting and photographing Freddy, the cute and spirited Norfolk Terrier. I met him and his owner at their beach house in Nahant, MA, a nubbly little “almost island” sitting out at sea. Freddy had me scuttling all about as he bounced up and down the beach. A great workout – it might as well have been 80 degrees and not the 30 degrees that it actually was!

It was a great house, a beautiful beach and a wonderful little dog.

And some behind the scenes!

The owner helping me get Freddy to stay in the chair while I make squeaky noises.

I really liked the whale!

Here at last is Hazel, roommate and secret confidante of Hobbes. She tried to hide in boxes and on top of tucked away suitcases and underneath the long coats hanging on the coat rack, but those kinds of “oh I’m just a shy kitty don’t get too close to me” shenanigans don’t work with me, no way. I will find you all and I will pet you and then I will take your picture. And maybe try to kiss you.

Bunny, in the tub, where he’s drawn a bubble bath for two…

VanBuren, in the boudoir, where a neck massage awaits…

Happy Valentine’s Day!

OH and Happy Chinese New Year too!

Here were my first paying clients of 2009, three cats named Tilly, Moxie and Truman. Technically, their session was at the end of Dec 2008, but I received my first glittering paycheck from the owner in Jan 2009, so I’m going with that.  I remember when I received that first check, made out to Fat Orange Cat Studio (eeee!), there was this huge jolt to the head that singed my eyebrows and rattled my teeth and sent my heart racing a million miles an hour. I was no longer just dabbling in photography for fun, for myself. I was skerred! Terrifed! My first reaction was to tear up that check and give her the prints for nothing, because I was sure that’s how much the prints were really worth, and apologize for pulling the wool over her eyes. A very sound practice to have, if your goal is to take your business and nosedive it straight into the ground.

{ Tilly, Moxie and Truman with my rudimentary logo }

And here is a sneak peek at the latest critter of 2010.

{ Sonny the pomapoo puppy }

The only unsound business practice I wanted to do this time was to run off into the woods with him stuffed in my mouth.

So yes, Fat Orange Cat Studio has turned one year old this month! I wish I had a hard date but I’m not sure what it is, having launched several times. I “soft launched” on Feb 5th 2009 but switched hosting providers almost immediately because the blog was running incredibly, incredibly slowly. I soft launched again a few days later but didn’t announce it to the world until I was sure things were running smoothly. I wrote a couple of posts and then officially announced on Feb 13 that the site was LIVE! Fat Orange Cat Studio was OPEN for BUSINESS!  (Okay duh maybe 2/13 should be my anniversary date.)  I announced this on another blog of mine I had been keeping, no I will not tell you where it is, and encouraged readers there to visit here and leave a question for me to answer so that I could have content for my very sparse About page. I received a ton of comments, my best college buddy in NYC sent over a bottle of champagne, Dan and I drank it and went out for a celebratory dinner, it was all very festive!

(Out of all the questions I received, I have only answered 10, eeps! I do plan on getting around to all of them though – many of which you can see in the comments here and here – and hopefully the last full year have given me more material to base my answers on…)

I’m not going to give the year’s round-down since I pretty much did that in my 2009 wrap-up post. Nor do I have a contest at the ready to celebrate. So instead I will be lame and just thank everyone again, so very very much, for helping make my first year such a wonderful and fulfilling experience! I feel so lucky to be doing this.