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

I get ready for bed now.

…lab lab lab…

I apply cold cream now.

I wipe it off!

Excuse me what?

No more photographs. I knock you out.

Woo wee wow.

It is time.

Teddy and Gidget the senior kitties are in their renovated digs! I have come to disturb their naps! This is their second shoot. The first shoot was over a year ago under gloomy conditions: the owners were holed up in small rental while their condo was getting fixed up, the temporary rug was kinda ugly, so said the owner, the lighting was terrible, and Gidget the black kitty told me to go do bad things to myself. But today she said purrrr, purrrr rrrrrr (excepting that last photo) so we are all friends again!

Cats cats cats are the best best best.

Mishka is one beautiful, playful Siberian Husky. Othello is one handsome, and-that’s-all-I-need-to-be, black kitty. Mishka + Othello are best friends!

Well, at least in Mishka’s ice blue eyes they are.

More Huskies (and cats), please.
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UPCOMING EVENTS…

* WPPI Tradeshow on Feb 21, 2011 – Las Vegas. Head to booth #1607!
* Fat Orange Cat Studio Open House on March 3, 2011 – Boston, Audrey’s on Newbury Street

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Back in April 2010 we were invited over to our neighbor’s house for Wine & Kitten Friday. The kittens, named Trip and Freddy, were a pair of barely-formed orphans being plumped up and groomed for adoption at the Animal Rescue League of Boston.

We did one more Wine and Kitten Friday a couple of weeks later. Their eyes were no longer blue, and their legs had grown so that they could actually walk instead of waddle. They were so cute it was unforgivable. I had an immediate favorite. Trip purred every time I picked him up, and even for a rambunctious little kitty he sat nicely in my lap, while Freddy ran around the apartment in a frenzy. Not that Freddy wasn’t perfectly edible as well! He was just a little more into exploring the world.

Now I have met with many a cat in my life, and the only two who enjoy sitting in laps and who look you in the eye and purr are Bunny and Veebs. They are rare breeds, very rare…I looked at Trip in my lap, Trip looked at me, I looked at Dan, Dan looked at me, Trip looked at Dan, Marna (the foster) looked at all of us and laughed, because she knew we had decided right then and there that he was coming home with us.

Towards the end of May, Trip was ready to be adopted. We took him home just a few hours after his surgery, and renamed him Bingley. Bingley is a character in my favorite book Pride & Prejudice. Everyone likes him because he is always good-natured and so pleased to meet your acquaintance…

It broke my heart a little that we couldn’t bring both brothers home. The way they played while at the foster’s! gah! so cute! Bunny & Veebs were shelter brothers too, so it would have been satisfyingly symmetrical to have two pairs of brothers in the house. But the Elders, as they are now called, are well, elderly, and as you can see from above, they are constantly under seige. Two kittens would probably just finish them off for good. Luckily for everyone, Freddy didn’t need to spend a day at the animal shelter either! He was adopted the same day by Lisa. We are now cat in-laws. Crazy cat in-laws.

A couple months later Lisa brought Freddy – now Buddy – over for a play date. But the light, carefree kitten play of yore was over. Both had sprouted sharp teeth and talons in the months apart, and Bingley’s kick-the-crap-out-of-every-cat-I-see stage was especially in high gear. Buddy hasn’t been over since. I don’t blame him.

Click for more heartwarming photos of their reunion!

When he’s not being a jerk, Bingley enjoys playing fetch. (!!!!) (!!!!)

(!!!!!!!)

Bingley in May at barely a pound to Bingley now at 14 pounds.

I’ve never owned a cat from such a young age, and it’s been so fun to watch him grow, especially the tufts under his paws and his luxurious mink stole of a tail. His hips are growing at a much faster rate than his head, so he’s a very shapely bowling pin. Lisa and I have decided Bingley and Buddy are Maine Coon/Siberian/Forest Cat/panther/banshee mix, so I’m really hoping Bingley will be go from the smallest and largest cat I’ve ever had. Bigger is better!

This cat kicks ass.

Edited to add: Here are a few photos of Buddy all grown up. He’s turned into quite a sleek and sexy little minx!

Here is a small round up of some 2010 holiday cards I did for myself, and others.

My personal holiday cards, with photo of Dan and me taken last year by my friend and photog Lisa Rigby.

In the same card with the image of us is also an image of our feline children, seen below. We have a new kitten named Bingley. He. is. awesome. I can’t wait to share more photos of him in future posts. I would have gotten to it much sooner but I have taken thousands of photos of him, ALL of which I want to share. It is impossible to curate photos of a kitten. Quite impossible.

Last year, I knitted Bunny and Veebs little scarves for their holiday cards. This year I pulled those back out and knitted a third scarf for Bingley, in green. He doesn’t have pom-poms because he ripped them out with his ferocious bare kitten teeth! He is so, so naughty. But look how cute they all look! Bingley is caroling his little heart out.

Holiday cards for Sarah Parrott. I wrote “Joy,” “Peace” and “Love” which she incorporated into beautiful letterpressed cards. On the back (or front) of the card is a portrait I took at her wedding. See more of her cards here.

{above photo by Sarah}

Sarah made cards for her sister too. I wrote the text, and Sarah drew the cakes!

{above photo by Sarah}

Here are some behind-the-scenes!

A couple of scans of the calligraphy below. The whole process takes me more time than I would like, honestly. There’s always some element of a word I like better than another version of the same word, like the tail in this “S” looks better than the one in that “S”, but I like the “e” in that one better than this one…I get so incredibly nit-picky and so I will write the same word over and over until it’s “perfect.” Of course, it never is!

Outtakes from cats’ photoshoot. Believe it or not, getting two rickity old cats and one crazy kitten to sit for a portrait, together, was a lot easier! Nevermind that at any given time someone was trying to walk offstage, or refused to look at the camera, or was making a funny face.