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

This past weekend was the Boston leg of Cowbelly’s Traveling Workshop, run by premier pet photog Cowbelly aka Jamie of Seattle, WA.  I think I signed up for this workshop back in February so August seemed like a LIFETIME away. Tricks of the pet photography trade just couldn’t come soon enough. But I had already “officially” launched the biz and it was either wait and sink, or just jump in and swim. I have learned a ton on my own just these last few months, but didn’t really realize it until after the workshop, which was great because I’m a gigantic gutless baby that needs to be reaffirmed every 30 seconds. The workshop also filled in a lot of gaps and made me aware of areas that need major tightening up or retooling. There are always going to be things to learn and re-learn, but after this workshop I feel that much more well-rounded and informed and confident.

Thatcher enjoying non-stop butt rubs

But I think the best part was meeting fellow aspiring pet photographers in the Boston area. To be honest I had no idea how being in a roomful of potential “competitors” would work, if we would sort of circle our wagons, stare each other down and growl. And of course there was absolutely none of that. I feel like I have PEERS now, not competition. It makes this business all the more enriching — I very much look forward to meeting up regularly to practice and bounce ideas off one another!

So without further ado, here are some shots of a few canines that were nice enough to model for us during the interactive part of the workshop.

On the red carpet

This is Thatcher the English Bulldog and yes she’s out of focus! I was practicing shooting from the ankles for the first time – the no-look grab shot that requires focusing and visualizing the composition without actually looking through the viewfinder. I have never ever seriously considered shooting this way before with my DSLR, because all attempts have yielded crap photos. And frankly, I also thought it was a rather hack way to photograph. If you shot like this while at a client’s, wouldn’t they be all WTF, I want my money back?

But I’m sold on this method now. I have had issues with dogs or cats trotting over to me when I start to crouch low for an eye-level shot, or more irritatingly, everytime I’d bring the camera up to my face they would turn away. Now with the no-look technique they won’t know what I’m up to, heh heh. There have been so many instances when I’m walking around the ‘hood and I’ll see a cute, utterly photographable dog and not take a photo because I don’t want to be intrusive…shooting from the ankle will help me capture the moment without being all up in your face.

And this method does yield some really cool angles and compositions. I just really need more practice! I couldn’t resist posting the above photo anyway because it looks as if Thatcher is the English Bulldog version of Angelina Jolie on the red carpet.

Me ‘n Thatcher are BFFs! For a second anyway. We were all trying to be BFFs with her.

Thatcher cooling down in the lobby of the Liberty Hotel.

Here is Marley, the chocolate poodle benefiting slightly from my new-found no-look technique.

Here is Remi the puggle as the Mayor of Boston.

He does get around in the city because I’ve photographed him before! It was at the Pawsh Boutique grand opening event back in April. Remi was just a puppy then.

Marley and Buddy the black Lab on the Esplanade. Buddy is hunting down an invisible squirrel.

And Marley with our intrepid leader Jamie.

Thank you Jamie for coming all the way to Boston to share what you know with us. I hope to connect with my fellow pet photogs again soon!!

Here is a follow-up from this post where I made Veebs jump a lot. I wanted to practice action shots, shutter speeds, ISO settings some more so out came the roast beef and treats, and up, up and away went Veebs.

17mm, f/2.8, 1/500 sec, ISO 1600

What a good little frogger. My best jumper ever.

Why is Veebs so good at what he does?

1) He keys up right before he takes off!

2) He has great form!

3) He sticks the landing!

(How is it that they always land JUST at the edge?)

4) He’s inexhaustable!

17mm, f/2.8, 1/500 sec, ISO 1600

5) He’s orange!

Bunny has disdain for jumping, but I managed to coax a few out of him. It turns out he makes the oddest little expression before he jumps. Very un-catlike. Maybe that’s why he doesn’t want you to see it.

30mm, f/3.2, 1/640 sec, ISO 1600

30 mm, f/2.8, 1/500 sec, ISO 560

Deliberately backlit, fyi :)

Getting better with the focus, but I think I might have to practice some more…

I was about to follow up some more on my previous post about becoming a wedding photographer, but then VanBuren jumped

so I had to drop everything including possibly real work in order to photograph more of it.

So this is how I normally shoot, ever since I got my first film Canon Rebel SLR, the one endorsed by Andre Agassi, heh. Nothing crazy here. I learned it from the Canon manual.
1. Auto Focus in single servo mode (never manual focus. My eyes are total doo-doo and I don’t trust them)
2. Press shutter halfway to lock focus – focus will remain even if you move focus point away from the subject
3. Recompose keeping shutter halfway down
4. Press shutter all the way to take picture

This is how I’m learning to shoot now, which I think is much faster. And I’m taking advantage of all the nifty bells and whistles the Nikon D300 has to offer.
1. Auto Focus in continuous mode (focus point will change as the subject/camera moves)
2. Use AF-ON button (back button) to activate focus, and turn OFF shutter’s ability to focus.
3. Slow burst mode
4. Activate 3D tracking

That is the honey pot right there: 3D tracking of your subject over 51 focus points. Once you activate which focus point to use, it will track the subject and readjust focus as the subject moves. All by itself! So handy for things like, oh, fast moving animals, or say, a wedding precession. No more of my clunky attempts to lock focus on moving subject (crapshoot), recomposing, firing. I’ve had the D300 for 10 months now and have never once used the 3d tracking. (I was spending all of that time getting comfortable with shooting manually, yep.) A reader, Simon from the UK, made a mention of 3D tracking recently, we backed and forthed on some emails, and I decided to finally give it a try. It. is. awesome.

So basically, instead of using the shutter to focus, I use the AF-ON back button with my thumb instead. While I hold this button down, 3D tracking will kick in, the camera’s brain does some crazy calculations based on the subject’s movement, continously moving the focus points along with the subject. When I’m ready to fire, I press the shutter with my index finger.

If I don’t want to use 3D tracking, I don’t have to, without going into the camera settings to explicitly turn it off. I simply tap the AF-ON button once with my thumb to focus – no holding down – then press the shutter to fire.

So what does this mean for me, potentially? Less fiddling. It means I can frame quickly and almost immediately. It means less chance of missing a shot because I’m taking the extra second to recompose. It means more chance of having subject in focus, even as it’s moving.

It means a lot a lot A LOT of practice, because my muscle memory is long and stubborn and doesn’t want to forget its old way of shooting.

Oh and I’m using auto ISO too! So fun! I set the minimum shutter speed I think I’ll be needing, and the maximum ISO I’m willing to go up to, and the camera will adjust the ISO accordingly so that I always get a correct exposure within those parameters. You end up with wacky ISO numbers that you wouldn’t be able to manually pick yourself, like 720, 900.

So here are some practice shots I did recently with all these new techniques. As you will see, none of them are in focus, haha! Really they’re all-around crap. In my defense, the weather up here in Boston has been total crap so the lighting situation is not exactly ideal for action shots.

All photos taken with Nikon D300 17-55mm f/2.8 lens.

23mm, f/2.8, 1/80 sec, ISO 1600, promise of catnip

32 mm, f/2.8, 1/80 sec, ISO 900, catnip

26mm, f/2.8, 1/100 sec, ISO 1000, catnip

34mm, f/2.8, 1/100 sec, ISO 1800, roast beef

34mm, f/2.8, 1/100 sec, ISO 900, roast beef

23mm, f/2.8, 1/80 sec, ISO 1400, tuna-flavored treats

34mm, f/2.8, 1/100 sec, ISO 1800, catnip, shredded

So a lot of practice and adjustments are needed. I probably could have used a faster shutter speed, and perhaps stepped back more. Once we get better lighting I will take more shots and report back. I will master this 3D tracking, AF-ON button thing, I will! Thanks again to blogless Simon for sharing all your tips!

And thank you to Veebs for your enthusiastic participation. Isn’t he the best? He seriously jumped about a dozen times for me. This is exactly why I name the business after him. He is so paws-on.

We were arranging some stuff on the walls and had the mirror propped in the hallway for a bit. I caught Veebs catching his handsome self in the mirror, so I had to drop everything and run for the camera. I cannot resist reflection shots.

A usual evening after work, where human tries to relax on couch, and cats try to relax on human.

After I took that shot Bunny successfully overthrew Veebs from the throne, and I caught him – and his reflection against the glass coffee table – making himself more comfortable.

I had never paid attention to the reflection made against that glass. It was pretty! A mini photo-session ensued. I was also experimenting with the picture control settings on my camera. I usually shoot in “Standard” mode (equivalent of “Faithful” mode in Canons, I think) because I find “Vivid” to be way too much so for portraits, pets and people alike. The Vivid mode seems to be highly touted by other Nikon D300 users however. I think at the end of the day it’s a matter of taste. 

But I decided I’d experiment more to confirm that I didn’t like it, or find situations where Vivid mode might be more suitable to my eyes.

The below shot SOOC (straight out of the camera, no post-processing applied) in Standard mode (what I usually shoot in):

I see your true colors…

The next shot is SOOC in Vivid mode:

…screaming through

The colors coming out of Standard mode is pretty as-is in real life. But honestly, if you’re striving for creativity, “as-is” and “true to life” are not necessarily qualities what you want to convey. At times both can be really flat and BLAH. Tweaking with colors, tones, hues, among other things, can do a lot to enhance the mood of your work. I just don’t know if super-tweaking the vibrancy of the colors in these kinds of images apply, know what I mean? Maybe in landscapes. In portraits it just looks too garish.

I probably post-process my Standard shots to a level with more saturation, but not at all to the level of Vivid. It’s somewhere in the middle. Usually. Depends on the lighting situation too. And the White Balance. Damnit so many variables to consider (I’ve had this camera for 10 months now, and still there is MUCH to learn). In any case, I find it impossible to fine-tune these settings in the camera. I want to have vibrant colored portraits, but setting the Saturation just one level up produces unnaturally blood-shot skin tones. I’m going to download some additional controls here, experiment with those and see if I can’t find a happy medium. The more I do in-camera, the less I have to do off-camera.

So what do you think of the Standard vs Vivid photos above? Just curious…

Bunny thinks he doesn’t give a flip what picture mode I shoot him in, as long as I get that camera out of his face. He’s so unhelpful.

A couple of weeks ago I participated in a Super Secret Stealth Shoot on the Sly. The mission: retrieve keys, wait for humans to leave for work, enter condo, photograph the two Labradoodles inside, leave before dogwalker comes. I had major help from the sister of one of the owners, who booked the shoot. The photos are going to be a surprise engagement present for her brother and soon to be sister-in-law.

Meet doodle #1: Clyde

Clyde is 2 years old and is sparkling white. His nose is brick-colored. His fur smells like fabric softener.

Meet doodle #2: Chloe

Chloe is but a puppy at 6 months old. She is more apricot in color than Clyde and has much less curl.  She’s got this impossibly buttony black button nose that reminds me of some Pixar animated character.

Clyde and Chloe had a jolly time hanging out on the bed. Hopefully owners didn’t come home and wonder why the sheets were a) so rumpled and b) smeared with American cheese.

To get these shots, I wedged myself between the bed and the wall, knees bent – there was maybe only 2 feet of space – and set my 17-55mm lens all the way to WIDE. I scooched as far back as I could so that I was pretty much crumpled against the wall like a stuffed doll that had been unceremoniously tossed from the bed. And I did it all for the light. It was an overcast day, and what meager light we were getting was coming in from the window directly above me.

The dogs’ human aunt E.  joined me in this tiny space, and together we sat squished side-by-side, me shooting away while E. smeared Kraft American cheese on their noses, dangled more cheese above the camera, and baby-talked right into my ear. The dogs clamored to get closer. I strained to back up more as my camera strained to focus on such close, quivering subjects. E. continued enticing them with cheese and cooing next to my ear. The dogs inched even closer. I could no longer hold still because my neck started to kill and I was laughing so hard.  I was imagining one of the owners unexpectedly coming home, walking into the bedroom, and seeing two dogs hovering over the edge of the bed as two girls huddled together on the floor, one with a handful of cheese and the other with a giant camera.

Say CHEESE PLEASE!

I LOVED how involved E. was during the shoot. It’s always great when I get assistance from owners. After all, they know what makes their dogs tick more than I do! Not only does it make my job easier, it makes it that much more fun. I think back to my very first shoots when I didn’t want or ask for assistance, mostly because I was really self-conscious, nervous, didn’t know what I was doing, or all of the above. My God I was SO self-conscious. I remember my first shoot – and it was for a good friend’s dog, pro bono, as practice – thinking, Am I *seriously* trying to photograph this dog PROFESSIONALLY? What does that even mean? Hi I look and feel stupid. I’d just randomly fire away and hope for the best.

Truth is I do still “randomly” fire away to get the absolute candid shots. But it’s definitely a strategic kind of random, if that makes any sense. I’m doing a lot of crouching and moving around and recomposing, and am always aware of what’s going on around me – light, backgrounds, colors, textures, etc. I still have lots to learn, but I feel I am seriously getting so much better at this. There’s still that breathless flutter of nerves before each shoot, because I want everything to go well, naturally. But I am no longer self-conscious. Can’t tell you how liberating that feels. And I do feel I know what I’m doing, or at the very least I have a battle plan for each shoot (whether or not it goes accordingly is not always the case, but that’s okay!). As I do more, I am finding that I’ve been balancing the true candids with a lot more staged shots in order to get more interesting compositions, or ones that I’m envisioning in my head pre-shoot.

Anyway, back to our featured pooches!

Clyde and Chloe are BFFs.

I love the below image. A staged shot turned candid.  Chloe is making sure that Clyde’s still there.

Now for some pure candids. Dogs looks so vicious when they’re playing!

Chloe: IMAGONNAEATCHOO!
Clyde: *sob*

After an hour or so hanging out at the house, we headed outside to pick up a third doodle who was waiting patiently to join the party.

Meet doodle #3: Moose (center)

Moose is E.’s own dog and blood brother of Clyde. He is an apricot. They make quite the dashing duo.

We made a stop at the dog playground, where the exuberant Chloe tested every toy there and was gone with the wind.

I particularly loved this shoot because of the location as well – the South End. My neighborhood! Chloe and Clyde’s home was only 2 streets down from mine. It took a total of 60 seconds for me to walk there. Yay! And I hope you will agree, we live in quite a pretty neighbood, filled with brick and wrought iron, cobblestone pathways and hidden alleyways. It is so very urban, so very Bostonian.

HOWEVER, if you’re going to shoot in the city, make sure you don’t schedule the session on trash pick-up day, the way I did. Oops. I strategically framed shots along the street so you wouldn’t see the bags of trash lining the curb.

Clyde and Chloe stepped aside briefly so we could get some solo portraits of Moose.

When humans are caught blinking on camera, I give those photos the heave-ho. But when puppies are caught blinking, I give those photos a 5-star rating. Why is that?

And it’s a wrap!

I’d like to think they’re all congratulating each other for a shoot well done.

We end with what’s becoming a favorite shot of mine: dog against red-orange door.

I so enjoyed this shoot – great dogs, great human assistance, great location (I want to do more urban shoots please. Beacon Hill and Back Bay-ers, call me!). I hope Clyde and Chloe’s parents enjoy their gift!