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

Introducing Dakota and Scrappy, a pair of feisty pit bulls from Medford MA. We spent a warm spring late afternoon capturing them relaxing at home, and romping outside on their luxurious front lawn.

Dakota, above, and her brother Scrappy, below.

BEHIND THE SCENES
Scrappy, being the less scrappy of the pair, was being egged on to participate by dogs and humans alike.

I actually missed this shot of Scrappy shaking his head, jowls and ears and spit flying, catching the light of the late afternoon sun. Because I was in the middle of shifting positions, I had looked away from the viewfinder briefly, but that alone shouldn’t have stopped me from pressing the shutter regardless. Sometimes I deliberately fire away without composing through the viewfinder, and then other times I just plumb forget. I waited hopefully for Scrappy to shake his head again, but of course it doesn’t work that way!

A couple of months ago we had our third and final session with Dasha, the Frenchie I first photographed last year (wow!) when she was about 3 months old. We had a beautiful March day for the shoot, and here are some of my personal favorites.

{ HRH Princess Dasha }

After the session I made a coffee table book from the owner’s favorite images across all three sessions. The owner chose a 10×10 hardcover book.  Up until now I’ve made 8×8′s and I must say, the extra inch all around makes a huge difference! I might have to just offer 10×10′s only from now on.

For the front cover I chose a black and white image from the second session, and for the back I chose another black and white from the first session.

The front cover is more white than black, and the back cover is more black than white – I think it made for a nice juxtaposition, and an echo of her face is also perfectly bisected down the middle.

Here is the first page, with the dates of all three sessions included:

And a spread inside:

And a behind-the-scenes. As usual, it was all hands on deck:

Happy 1st birthday Dasha! Thank you for letting be a part of your first year!

To see more photos of Dasha growing up, here is her first session, and here is her second session. (yowzas, my post-processing was…loud!)

Well. I was going to start of this week by talking about our new kitten (!!! yay !!!) but instead I have to make this downer of a public announcement: Please don’t copy other people’s work. It’s lame. And illegal, and blah-dee-copyrighted-intellectual-theft-mumbo-jumbo. But mostly, it’s just lame. Laaaaaame.

Here are the offenders: www.sanberry.cn/wpblog

My blog design is based on this free wordpress theme which I picked apart to oblivion.

So aside from the layout dimensions, fonts, colors, they took my accent images. Next to the post title is my orange beveled square with a watercolor texture, and a 2-pixel high gradient, also with a watercolor texture, that took me forever to make. It’s not like some graphical masterpiece, but I did it myself so it’s mine. It’s mine!

I think the only reason they didn’t take the header image too is because my name and “fat orange cat studio” is on it. They didn’t have any problems using the cat icon. It’s cherry-picking thievery.

They link to me on their blogroll. Did they think I would see this and not be offended by this? I wasn’t able to leave comments to tell them otherwise. So here is this blog post.

I am offended. Be a man and come up with your own stuff.

Several weeks ago I joined Matty the senior chocolate Labrador and his owner for a nice, leisurely spring stroll around the neighborhood, right when the fruit trees and lilacs blooms were at their peak (early this year). He is a handsome dog with quite a bit of sprite in him yet. I’ve been wanting to photograph a chocolate Lab for a long time. Thanks to Matty for making it happen!

Matty’s a superstar!

BEHIND-THE-SCENES

I got sat on. Matty stood with one little back paw on my ankle while trying to find room in my undersized lap for his rump, and it must have been something like 10000 lbs per square inch of pressure going on there with his foot on mine.  Here I am laughing and crying at the same time.

At the beginning of this year I decided I needed to make a wedding version of my logo. I commissioned my graphic designer friend Jesse to update the original logo he made with some wedding elements, such as a gauzy veil over the cat’s head maybe, or a bouquet being tossed, flying across the “fat orange cat” text. Or have flowers petals flying in the breeze. He tried everything I asked and through no fault of his, none of what I requested could be translated very well to a tiny, thumbnail sized logo. The veil over the cat looked like a ghost, the bouquet looked like fly. I was over-complicating things. So I decided I needed to another approach…and turned to calligraphy!

After researching many calligraphers online – some who were very formal and traditional, some who were downright quirky – I discovered the wonderful, wonderful work of Paperfinger.  I instantly fell in love with Bryn’s informal script, her casual flourishes and her beautiful illustrations. Her style fits my aesthetics to a T.

See, so pretty!

Calligraphy by Paperfinger. Visit her blog here to see more delicious hand-written goodies.

Beautiful writing aside, there were several things that I drew me to about Bryn: barely a year in business, she has already been seen in the pages of Martha Stewart Weddings, is self-taught, and has a computer science degree that she doesn’t care to use. Just like me! Well, I don’t know if it’s just like me, but I for one don’t much care to use my degree anyway! I didn’t find any of these things out until after I already knew I wanted to work with her. We were meant to be…

Bottom line is, I think her work is singular, and very fresh. Maybe being self-taught is a reason for that. No constraints, no rules, just what looks right.

I asked Bryn to draw me the cat shape, a tree branch, write the word “weddings” and also my name. As style guides/inspiration I pointed to Edward Gorey and the gnarly limbs of live oaks, aka the sexiest trees on earth. I also asked her if she would give me her sketches after we were done, and she obliged. I’m not sure which I love more, the final product or the rough drafts. If only my name contained more letters!

Sarah of Parrott Design Studio will be incorporating these into more notecards. I’ve asked her to letterpress several varieties and will be providing her with the 100% cotton Crane’s paper which my mother-in-law, who used to work there, was so generous to give to me.  At some point there will be business cards but I haven’t decided yet. I have a feeling I will not want to give away any letterpressed biz cards, because the thought of any crumpled up at the bottom of a purse, or worse, in the trash, is too much!

So in the meantime, notecards. I couldn’t be happier with how well the existing and new hand-drawn elements work together. Simple with just a touch of whimsy. I love how Gorey-esque the cat is, and yet how the curl of the tail still mimics the tail of the g in the “orange” as it did when the cat was digital, and how that flourish is transferred to the “d” in “Ward”.  And the “s” in “weddings.” It’s all deliberate!

On teal, my name blind-embossed (no ink) and no logo.

And Moo cards, which already have the new cat logo.

Be sure to see some more of Paperfinger’s calligraphy in action here, and this great Q&A I just found. Check out her napkin invites. So simple and so lovely it hurts! ~ Thank you Bryn!