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

Now that the 2011 season is officially over, I thought I’d share a little behind-the-scenes of sorts – my DVD cases! I include high-resolution images in my photography service. The dvd covers are from most of the weddings I’ve done this year. Several are not included as some couples wished to remain private, and there are a couple of early ones I am just realizing I never got around to blogging, erps. I’ll get to them! Anyway as you can see I tend to be a little more traditional with the photo cover, keeping to a simple, classic portrait of the handsome new couple. The back is usually some detail from the wedding. Around wedding #3 I started to include calligraphed names of the bride & groom on the spine, but sometimes I’m not able to fit it into my workflow for reason or another…such as August and September when time seemed to be so scarce and I just needed to get things ordered. Everyone did end up receiving a stamp from the calligraphy though (except for Anny and Caitlin, ack!).

See some cases in action here.

I hope everyone had a wonderful first holiday as a married couple and thank you for choosing me to be your photographer! It has been an amazing honor, and an amazing year.

My friends at Pinhole Press make wonderful, customized paper goods out of your photographs, like the ones below from this season’s weddings. I had these made as gifts for my clients, and couldn’t help but include some calligraphy to make it even more personalized. It meant me scanning in the lettering, opening Photoshop, pasting in the image of the lettering with the wedding photo I wanted to use, saving it, uploading it to Pinhole…Just so you know, I added about 4 extra steps for myself! The calligraphy on Bill & Maggie’s notepad is actually a photograph off their wedding invitation, so that was nice reuse :). The step of uploading your images to Pinhole is all you need to worry about. Seriously no-fuss.

See for yourself how easy it is to get your own customized paper goods. Pinhole Press is having a 1-day holiday sale right now! So get your favorite wedding, travel, baby image files out of your hard drive and onto calendars, wine labels, and journals, to name a few. Enter code “holidaykickoff” and receive 33% off your entire order until Nov 4, 2011 9am EST.

PS I just saw this post on their Pinhole Pro Community site: how their products are made. A really great behind-the-scenes!

I calligraph my wedding couple’s names, scan them, and use the image on the spine of their DVD covers, photo boxes, press albums, for invitations and save-the-dates…I also make rubber stamps out of them and imprint their names on the DVD surface (the printable kinds only) and envelopes. Then I include the stamps themselves in the packaging. For each client this whole hand-lettering rigmarole adds several hours to my workflow, but it makes my final package cohesive and personal. I love small hand-made touches when I see them, so I can’t help but to include them when I can!

In July I traveled to Kinsale, Ireland for several days under the fine Irish sun with the team of Pinhole Press for what they described as a “boondoggle” with fellow photographers, all of whom like me are Pinhole Press ambassadors. Pinhole is a new boutique that transforms your special photos into beautiful paper products for all occasions, from notepads to day planners to – my new favorite – wine labels! In addition to offering these quality products for consumers, they are coming out with some exciting new offerings for the professional photographer as well…that’s on the horizon and it’s going to be really, really great.

We stayed at a great house in Kinsale, drank, ate, saw the sights, drank some more, ate some more, and spent one morning talking business to make the whole trip legit, heh. I brought only my 35mm film camera and several rolls of Ektar 100. We start off with photos of a cute little mackerel tabby, of course, in an Irish cemetery…

Awesome editorial photographer Kelsey Foster giving me some posing tips.

On the right is the wonderful newborn photographer Jessica Washburn.
She was my roomie!

Top right is Ned Jackson of Boston! We zigzagged through Heathrow airport, coming AND going, until we cried.

The Team! We are on the most beautiful cliffy golf course surrounded by water.
At the back row next to me is Alison and Bart of Pinhole Press, then L-R is Alisha of Clark+Walker Studio,
Ned of Ned Jackson Photography, Luke of Clark+Walker Studio, Jessica of Jessica Washburn Photography, and Kelsey of Kelsey Foster Photography (this photo taken w/ her digi cam)

Sign me up for next year!

Behind the Scenes

Along with Jessica and Ned, I was stranded in London for a night on the way home. Even though my airport hotel room had a lovely view (not really), it was nice to finally get back home to a tired and worried husband who held that sign at the gate for an entire 20 hours more than he expected to.

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!)