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

Last week I held my first Open House at Audrey’s on Newbury Street. It was a smashing success, even better than I could have imagined. And I only say that because I hardly remember what happened. Suddenly I was collapsed at home on the couch, happy, hoarse, and STARVING because I forgot to eat. Good sign of good times, right?

I had albums and canvases propped on shelves all over the store and a slideshow of favorite pet and wedding photographs scrolling on the TV.  Parrott Design Studio had their suite of letterpress printed wedding invitations nestled in between bags of dog food, and their big binder of stationery samples sat atop a cat scratching post. My sister-in-law Meg took charge of the drinking station in the back of the store, surrounded by cushy piles of dog beds, and The South End Buttery catered the food, none of which I ate (talking talking talking!) but heard was very delicious. Oh I did have one cupcake! That I remember.

Here are some new wedding canvases for the Open House, waiting to be displayed. No need for pet ones – Audrey’s has seven of them on the walls already!

And floral arrangements by Petalena, made pet-friendly:

Beautiful spring bridal bouquet of tulips, ranunculus (swoon), sweet pea (swooon),
peonies (swooOOoOOoon) anchored by a ruffle of sage. HOLD ME!

Show time!

I was still setting up when people started arriving. You guys are punctual. I was still setting up 15 minutes in, heads down, running around, moving things, forgetting things, panicking, and then decided to just let it go and Start Mingling. Otherwise known as The Whole Point of this Open House.

With so many great raffle prizes, we raised over $400 for the Animal Rescue League of Boston. Thank you to Brittany, Sarah, Apryl of Petalena Flowers, Jennifer of Esq. Events, Kerrie of Back Bay Framery, as well as Grettacole and Top of the Hub for your contributions!

Your hosts above, L-R: Brittany, owner of Audrey’s and Sarah of Parrott Design Studio
Your host below: Me with four-legged friend Emma, my husband Dan and his sister Meg

THANK YOU SO MUCH to everyone who came to the Open House and making it such a fun evening. Maybe we’ll have to make this an annual thing!

All Open House photos by my kitty-in-law Lisa Rigby
(our cats are bros, and ARL Boston alumi!)

I’ll be the first to admit it: I am horrible at displaying prints. I take and take and take photographs and then I take some more…and at the end of the day I don’t know what to do with so many photos. Album or scrapbook? Desk or wall frames? Which ones, in what order and on which wall? I can’t make up my mind so as a result, many of my photos either pile up in a shoebox or in a hard drive, so sad and all alone. If only I had a little direction to help me organize and display my photos so that they receive the respect they deserve! Because what is the point of taking all these photos when you’re not going to showcase them properly?

Enter The Back Bay Framery, Boston’s premier fine-art framer.

I love supporting local vendors and working with great people, so it is with great excitement and glee that I announce a Fat Orange Cat Studio promotion with The Back Bay Framery, to help you turn your important photos into beautifully framed works of art, ready to be showcased in your home!

When you book a session with me and order prints, bring those print in to The Back Bay Framery and receive 15% off all display products and services! This runs the gamut from desktop picture frames to handcrafted scrapbooks to leather albums – and even custom framing.

There are a lot of beautiful products to choose from, and Kerrie, the owner of The Back Bay Framery, is on hand to help. She has been serving Boston’s custom framing needs since 1998, and because of her wonderful service, hands-on approach, and solidly crafted products, her business has flourished, winning the venerable Best of Boston award several times. I am finally getting a few important pieces custom framed, and Kerrie has been wonderful to work with.

If you visit her store now, you’ll see a rather lavish display of my pet photos at the front of the store…

So giddy to see my photos so beautifully framed! No, these are not your IKEA or Crate + Barrel frames, for sure.

Kerrie runs The Back Bay Framery with the help of her lovely assistants, Sadie Lou and Spike (the Yorkie mix). All three may greet you at the door.

So! If (1) You’re in the Boston area, (2) have a dog or a cat / or want yourselves photographed, (3) contact me to schedule a shoot, (4) order prints, (5) head over to The Back Bay Framery, (6) consult with Kerrie to get them beautifully displayed and (7) receive 15% off your order. Now you have no reason not to have your photographs properly showcased.

The Back Bay Framery
227 Newbury Street in Boston
Between Fairfield and Exeter Street

And tell Kerrie that Fat Orange Cat Studio sent you!

Thank you to Kathi of Bark Place and Washington Gateway for having me participate in the “It’s a Dog’s Life” event at SOWA Open Studios this past Sunday! It was a lot of fun and a pleasure meeting fellow dog-lovers and residents of the South End. I love living here! (Sick of hearing me say that, are you?)

VanBuren, the fat orange cat himself, will draw the an entry from the raffle bowl tomorrow and the winner of a photo session with Fat Orange Cat Studio will be announced on Thursday!

In the meantime, here are some scenes from Sunday. See the full gallery of dogs here.

I have so much to talk about, including some of the products displayed on the counter. I don’t think I’ve ever described them much on this blog. So in addition to the usual framed and matted 8x10s and 5x7s, I displayed 11×14 examples of Mounted Prints – prints adhered to thick fiber board and ready to hang – and cool mini accordions. The Mounted Prints I have been offering for some time now, and am pleased that clients have been going for them. If you’ve ever been to the South End Buttery, all the large prints you see there are Mounted Prints. I’ll be showing more examples of those and some other products in an up-coming post. It’s been on my to-do list for some time!

And as an aside for fellow camera-lovers out there, will someone tell me how I ever manged to shoot for so long without a full frame digital camera?! I’ve been using the Nikon D700 exclusively since I got it just several days ago — for this event, for a dog client shoot and a human being shoot (gah!). The 50mm has not come off the camera and I am flabbergobstunned by the vibrance and sharpness of the images. And I like the way it CLICKS when I press the shutter. Such a satisfying, crisp little click.

See below Before & Afters. I shot in JPEG and Vibrance mode, manual settings and manual WB. The images on the left are SOOC. The photos of the right have had blacks and fill light increased a TEENY TINY bit. The second B&A had a little bit of color correction as well to remove the greenish tinge. Overall, in the right light or no, shots have been afreakinmazing straight out of the camera.

Nuts, right?! Can’t wait to share more!

This past Saturday The Beehive, the hippest eatery here in Boston’s South End, held a “K-9 and Cocktails” event out in the patio. Under the summer sun, dogs socialized over apps and drinks named Beeftinis, Veggie Marys and Tail Waggers. (ha ha!) Bark Place Spa, a do-it-yourself dog bathing boutique located in the South End, provided the cool bowls. Polka Dog Bakery, a South End business baking homemade goodies for your dog everyday, provided the martini-shaped treats. Proceeds went to the Animal Rescue League of Boston, located around the corner in the South End. I, of Fat Orange Cat Studio, crouched on the brick patio to photograph all the fun in the blazing, blazing sun. I too am located in the South End, in case I have not mentioned that enough times.

I just love living here.

I contemplated trading in Bunny & Veebs for a dog so I could attend this event with a proper date. I was asked so many times where my dog was and it’s getting a little embarrassing explaining that I don’t have one. Does it count that our cats act like dogs?
Here are some scenes from The Beehive:

Everyone was wearing magenta.

And speaking of local businesses, how cool is that headpiece? It’s made by Marie Galvin (that’s her with her pooch and fabulous headband), a Boston milliner (milliner!) based in the South End. I have always been THIS CLOSE to buying one of those beautiful feather headbands but had nowhere to wear them to. I have a wedding this October I’m shooting – I think that will be the perfect occasion.

(This “puppy” is really a Pomeranian.)

(This Sheltie is 3-legged.)

(This…mixed breed? has freckles.)

(This Husky has amazing eyes.)

(This Lab is a goofball.)

The Beehive patio was packed all afternoon and Beeftinis were flying out of the bars – a great success!

From the moment I began to exist, I loved three things.

#1: Cats. We do not need to elaborate too much there. But as an anecdote, my favorite comment was made by a boyfriend a long time ago as we were traveling through Europe, in towns littered with strays, each of whom I tried to befriend. As I crouched and extended my hand to the umpteenth feline, enticing it to come out from beneath an overturned rowboat in exchange for a head scratch, he observed, “You stop for all cats.” I never realized it until he said it, but yes. Yes I do. I stop for all cats. And I think my traveling companion was kind of annoyed and/or horrified by it, because by all he meant ALL. The one-eyed versions, tail-less versions, the oily-haired versions. I’d stop to pet them all, pet them all good. And then go back and reach for his hand. Ha ha.

#2: Strawberries. I also stop for all strawberries. Dan has a co-worker who loves to bake desserts on the weekends. On Monday he IM’d me to say that this co-worker had this time brought in her own chocolate-covered strawberries, and they were colossal. I made him do a ghetto move and bring one back for me in a Tupperware. When he came home, I removed the strawberry from the Tupperware and the chocolate from the strawberry, ate just the strawberry, then said, “Oh hi you’re home.”

#3: Paper, and any paper-related goods, such as pens. My mom said I knew how to “write” before I could talk. If there was no paper to write on, I used my arm, my leg. Several years ago when my college BFF and I were unhappy at our desk jobs, we dreamed up a plan to start our own business in custom wedding invitations. She would be the right brain of the business, I would be the left.

We particularly liked letterpress so we decided we’d specialize in letterpressed stationery, and even went so far as to name the business The Cats on Beacon Hill. (By the way, this friend of mine calls me Cat and I call her Kitty. This whole cat thing runs deeeep.) Beacon Hill was (is) my favorite neighborhood in Boston. The residents are the type of clients we would want to cater to. Also we thought it sounded nice.

We had a couple of brainstorming sessions and even a few excel spreadsheets were drawn, but the start-up collapsed due to insufficient funds and lack of…anything and everything else necessary to start a business. For example, one question that came up during brainstorming was, “Um OK so how does letterpressing work…?” Neither of us really knew, and then we had a meeting to go to and a conference call to make, and well we never got to researching that part of our letterpressing business.

My love of paper is still intact though, and if I weren’t doing photography, I still would love my own little printing business. The thing that’s stopping me now isn’t lack of focus or drive. It’s lack of space. I met Sarah’s 100+ years-old press last weekend and it’s huuuge! But so beautiful. Sigh. I want one.

I think I need to get married again so I can have Sarah do the wedding invitations. Or maybe I need to finally have that baby now so she could do the announcements. Hmm.

But in the meantime, I am so, so, so happy about this:

And this!

They are CUSTOM-MADE (eeeeeee!!) letterpress plates made from my font and my logo.

Sarah mixed up the ink paste herself, matching the shade to that of the orange on my business card. Below are some practice sheets. I saw these in her studio – ah such a pretty little studio!! – and asked if I could have them.

Something about seeing my name and logo stamped over and over on scrap notecards had me in a small state of bliss. It just illustrates how painstakingly handmade, and therefore imperfect, and therefore beautiful, the whole process is.

100 cards inked and pressed by hand, just for me. This might sound crazy, but these cards are a DREAM COME TRUE.

The plan is to include a little note with each print order I make. The cards were going to say “Thank You” at the top, but then I couldn’t resist seeing my name in print. Also, now they don’t necessarily have to be thank you cards. Wish my name were longer though…more letters to press. “Knightly” would be a great name to see letterpressed. Or “M. Night Shyamalan.”

I’ve been gliding my fingertips over the impressions like inverted Braille. I don’t think I can bear to give any of these away.

If you get one of these notes from me, you must promise to never throw it away, ok? Not even into the recyling bin.

So if anyone has their own business and needs personalized cards for that added touch, or is getting married soon or knows someone who is getting married soon, tell them about Sarah and Things are Better With a Parrott. Because they are! Go local, go boutique, go special! Check out her etsy shop too! You will love your exquisitely made cards.

Love love love.