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!

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!

Today’s post is brought to you by the color orange. And when a post is brought to you by the color orange, that can mean only one thing…

THERE’S A FAT ORANGE CAT IN THE HOOooooOOOOooUSE!

The fabulous orange goodness in question is a 3 year-old rescue named Hobbes. His owner is Jennifer Cox, a contractual lawyer by day and wedding planner extraordinaire by night. And weekends. What a lovely combination of skills! I have had the pleasure of working with her at a wedding that she helped me book, and Jennifer has had the pleasure of revising my wedding contract. Fair trade, right? No? Okay well then here are some photos of your feisty little Hobbes, who is meaty, chewy, but mostly annoyed that I didn’t let him play with his tissue paper in peace.

Hobbes has a pretty tortoise-shelled sister named Hazel, and she made it be known that she hated my guts. But we shall see her shortly because my goodness do I love cats, disdainful looks and gut-hating and all. I haven’t photographed nearly enough felines, so if you have a cat, you need to call me. You need to call me.

xoxo Hobbes!

The cats are getting up there in age. I think at 13-ish years, they are officially old, if not elderly. So it’s no surprise that most of the time, the cats are like this:

Occassionally though, something lights the little kitten wick hidden underneath their fair bellies, and when that happens, they’re like this!

Their cat fights can get vicious! There’s muffled cries, tufts of fur flying everywhere, and angry, puffy tails. Well, one angry, puffy tail. Bunny’s nubby tail is such that it cannot puff. It cannot puff.

They fight every now and then and it’s always so funny. I love the way their paws separate into little furry hands and the shape their mouths make when they get the air knocked out of them. Their urge to wrestle though happen unexpectedly or in too-short spurts, and almost always when the camera is in the other room. When I do happen to have my camera within reach, just the act of turning it on takes too long, or if I manage to get that far, me creeping in close distracts them from fighting that they stop as soon as I’m ready to shoot.

I think I have to go all NatGeo on them and wait inside a box in order to catch them in action.

But one pretty good indicator that a rumble is coming is if there’s a cat in the litterbox. The sound of one cat finishing up his business and scratching the box alerts the other to get into position for an ambush at the bathroom door. A mad fight ensues. I happened to be ready this day to document the initial ambush of Veebs. He was doing his thing and scratching madly at the side of the box (stupid cat) and I watched Bunny lower himself into stalk mode. Game ON! Camera’s set, finger’s on the shutter.

But it was still so hard to photograph them! They would swipe, do nothing, swipe, do nothing, run, sit, sit, sit, lunge. During their periods of inactivity I would bring the camera down from my face, and that was precisely when they would suddenly lunge at each other. Crazy unpredictable buggers.

Here they are hopping around with dilated pupils. I really wanted an all out thrown-down but this will do.

^ Note that Veebs has all paws off the ground in the third shot, ha ha!

Puffy tail!!

The quality of these photos isn’t so great. High shutter speed in a dark, litter-filled hallway (I was about to vacuum it up when they started fighting), and a lot of cropping because I stood back to shoot. But you get the idea. They crack me up. I have so, so many photos of them sleeping/lounging/sitting. So the goal for this year is to catch more of them in action, before they become too infirmed to move.