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

One of the reasons I like photographing animals so much is that they are blissfully unaware of the camera (usually). They’re doing everything except worrying about a good side versus a bad side, or how much should I smile or does my hair look OK. So it was with some slight trepidation when I agreed to shoot a wedding for this weekend. It’s a rite of passage! Hold me! Lean in for a kiss!

Honestly, I don’t know the first thing about posing, unless it’s to dangle a toy mouse above your head so that you’ll raise your arm in that pretty, dainty way. So brides, if you respond well to high-pitched meows, and want photos of yourself and your party swiping at toys or looking longingly at dog treats, then I’m the girl for you. Otherwise, be prepared for some seriously weird poses.

The couple assured me they were all about the candids. So I breathed a small sigh of relief, agreed to do their wedding, and headed over to Calumet to rent a telephoto lens. To capture those non-posed moments from afar. I gave myself a week to practice with it.

This is a 80-200mm f/2.8 lens. I wanted the “legendary” 70-200mm lens which has vibration reduction, but it was out. Not that it matters anyway. They’re both the same size/weight. That of a MONSTER’s.

Shooting with this lens was like shooting with a bus. After 10 minutes I felt I had been run over by one. It was 7 lbs of top-heaviness. I extended my left arm out to support the lens at its end. The camera shake was insane. I planted my feet far apart to steady myself. I stopped breathing. It didn’t help. My core did get a nice workout though. I brought my elbows in to steady my arms against my body, which was a little better, until my neck, back, shoulders, forearms, wrists all threw up from the pain.

How do wedding photographers manage this thing? I’ve decided not to use it. I rented it to be able to capture more candid shots at the wedding, but if they’re all going to be blurry, then the point is nil.

So after 30 minutes of bodily pain and really horrid shots, the best I came up with were these of the boys while I was clear across the room. VanBuren wanna be starting something.

I’ve been meaning to post about Daisy the Golden Retriever for some time, but have been sitting on some of the photos, dissecting them for worthiness. This was the first time I burned through the first of two 4gig compact flash cards in less than 20 minutes. Smoke was coming out of the camera. So there were a ton of images, and I’ll admit, a ton of bad apples in the batch. I was doing some new things that day.

First up though, a quick headshot of Daisy indoors. She knows we’re about to go outdoors. Is that Mommy putting on her snow boots? She’s trying to contain herself. Because when we go outside…

…there is snow to eat!

And tennis balls to catch! And have bounce off your chest!

The new thing I was attempting that day were action shots. Admittedly, I need a lot of work in this area. The action shots above were taken at 50mm, f/5.6 and 1/800 to 1/600 seconds. Burst mode at 5 frames per second. Faster shutter speeds will allow you to freeze the action, but it also means less light gets in. The original photos are very underexposed. Very. Horrifyingly. You can tell the above photos are not at all sharp, and look overly “post-process-y.” I had to adjust the exposure and curves quite a bit. They’re much better than the originals, but they look washed out.

The shutter speed/aperture setting/ISO speed/lighting situation/distance between me and subject is a combination I need to figure out. A change in any one of those areas affects the others, and they must be adjusted accordingly (if you’re shooting in manual mode). Right now my brain is not computing this alogorithm fast enough.

Maybe 1/800 sec was faster than necessary? Maybe I should have stopped down and shot wide open? If I shot from a farther distance back, I could have slowed the shutter speed, still freezing the shot but letting more light in? Maybe I should have just shot in shutter priority mode?

MAYBE I should have shot in SUNNIER SIDE OF THE YARD?!

So yes, in the middle of all the technical melee that was going on inside my head, I failed to see the light, which all photographers in the known universe will place as the highest priority when taking stock of a shot.  Me knowing this and yet not doing it makes Me mad. The above were taken in the east-facing backyard during the late afternoon. The house was blocking the sun in the yard, except for a small portion which was still getting some tree-filtered light as the sun began to set. I did take stock of the area first, and did note this.

And yet somehow, here we are, on the other side, the darker side, the cold gray dreary side, shooting away. We had just migrated over there and by that time all the must-freeze-the-action! data crowded out the light data in my head. Such a shame.

Then again, when the dog is having all this fun noshing on her tennis ball in the snow, do you really want to ruin the moment by making her move? Such a dilemma.

And I haven’t even talked about how to get a moving dog in focus.

So Daisy, why don’t you take a breather, sit pretty and let me feel a little better about my photographic skills.

Ah. Thank you.

Today, I need no champagne to feel bubbly. I am so fizzy and filled with giddy goodness that I don’t know what to do with myself. I am so tee hee hee and a hoo hoo hoo!

And as an added bonus to an already great day, I improved my photo retouching workflow by a factor of a million. Celebraaaaation. So now instead of spending two days or so (ugh!) to process a couple hundred photos, I’ve got it down to a couple of hours. I’d like to get it down to one hour at most, which would include the post-processing of selected raw files, optimizing them for the 1. blog (including watermark) 2. the client proofing section and 3. the portfolio site, all of which need to be re-cropped to different aspect ratios, and resized to different dimensions. This is what’s kind of making things clunky for me right now, having to re-crop and resize the same photo 3 different ways.

Today’s featured pet is Ms. Kitty, proud owner of Kathy and her husband.

One thing that I’ve found a little challenging when shooting cats is their natural inclination to do absolutely nothing. Veebs is the master at doing Nothing, especially when you want him doing Something. One of my favorite poses well-known to all cats is the “loaf” or “boat” pose, where they tuck all their limbs underneath their bodies, front legs and paws curled over the chest so they look like they’re sitting on their own flotation devices, tail wrapped closely around the side. Push them out into open water and they’re ready to set sail!

But however much I like it, there is really only so long one can continue taking photos of the loaf pose. All angles can quickly be covered when the cat’s not moving. Thus, the cat must be engaged, whether she likes it or not. Usually they don’t, but the cat must move. The cat. Must. Play.

Or not.

Pretty please? Pretty please with a mouse on top?

Yessss….yessss! You know what to do, Kitty, you know what to do!

Such a very very VERY BAD MOUSE!

So on any other day it might have been nap time, but today for a little while we were able to make it play time…

And the shoot ended with a pretty pose.

I had a ton of fun on this shoot; there were some bust-out laughing moments as we tried to get a sometimes apathetic Kitty to participate. So thank you Kitty!

Farewell, holiday haze. We spent the last several days binge eating and drinking, and then when we got home we spent 7 hours or so binge TV-watching. 8 episodes of Dexter Season 2, back to back to back to back. To back. I feel utterly gross.

I’m spending some time now trying to cross out items from my mile-long to-do list. There are so many details to take care of that I’m pretty much overwhelmed. I don’t know where to start, I can’t make up my mind, I want to push off final decisions for another day. I’ve learned that I’m really good at putting things off. So here I am, painfully oozing towards the finish line like some obese snail that’s run out of slime, but I’ll get there. It’s gonna be ugly, but I’ll get there.

So I’m going through all my photos for ones that will go into the portfolio (which will be ready as soon as I decide on a template…), and thought I’d post just some of the many, oh so many photos that don’t make the cut. While there are plenty – due to bad lighting, bad composition, blurriness, whatever – these are a few that particularly pain me because I feel the potential for really good photo was there, and I either couldn’t get my camera to work for me in time, or my eyes didn’t see what was directly in front of me.

Exhibit 1: Energetic dog doing what she loves

I crouched to the ground, threw a stick, Sadie ran for it, and before I could bring the camera up to my face, she was already back. I couldn’t focus in time. You can see how much she’s enjoying fetch. The stick is falling out of her mouth and she’s ready for more. I probably should have just thrown the stick while holding the camera to my face with the other arm (camera+lens is HEAVY though). Or, I could have thrown the stick farther. Or, I could have gotten her owner to stand behind me and throw the stick. I should have. Whatever method, this blurry shot was the only one I took. I wish I had tried again, but for some reason, I didn’t.
Lesson learned: Enlist owner’s assistance; Keep shooting.

Exhibit 2: Energetic dog is funny
Bob was chewing his squishy toy, and snorting, looking at me with those crazy eyes. He was clearly very happy with his toy, and I couldn’t stop laughing, which is a surefire way to get blurry photos.
Lesson learned: Keep up and don’t laugh. Not too hard anyway.

Exhibit 3: Cross-eyed cat tilts head

Looking at this photo I weep at what could’ve been. This is one of the very first shots I took of Tilly. I was still adjusting my camera and whatnot, and set the little shiny toy just there in preparation. Too soon! She immediately jumped onto the chair and performed a wonderful impersonation of her own bobblehead doll. All the cute exploded everywhere. And I wasn’t ready for it.
Lesson learned: Only entice pet with favorite toy after you’re prepared to shoot.

Exhibit 4: Black lab with sailboat
I look at this photo and I’m like, What. Did. I do. I’ve made a dead bush the main focus of the shot. Unlike the Sadie photo that I didn’t retake, I did retake this, 5 times, 5 slightly different angles. And the ridiculous bush was there each time. I was so excited to have a black lab, the water, and a little sailboat in the same frame that my mind just selectively cropped out the bush. I guess?! I also wish I had posed the dog some – have her sit on the sand and looking out towards that sailboat in the nearby distance, and shoot from the back. What a serene picture that would have made. Stupid #$@% bush.
Lesson learned: You want to be a pet photographer, not a dead bush photographer.

Hi. I’m way behind. No one is surprised. I got back from China last week, voted, caught a cold from the guy sitting next to me on the plane who had the most disgustingly phlegmy cough, and have spent most of the week trying to catch up on sleep, getting over cold (not quite yet) and catching up on work (ugh definitely not quite yet). Daylight savings is not helping. My productivity level plummets when it starts getting dark. So I start getting unproductive at around 3:30-4:00pm these days. Horrible.

I should get back to the routine I was trying to establish before I left. If I stop talking about pet photography I will lose any inertia I may have had, and I don’t want that to happen. Because I haven’t made much progress elsewhere on the biz side. I haven’t gotten cards made, haven’t set up site, coming with an actual biz plan, etc. OH what a pain in the ass, if only my fairy godmother was around to do it all for me. I know the vendor I want to use for the cards, I know what I want the site to look like, it’s all a matter of implementation. And knitty gritty details. My brain sputters at the mention of nailing down the knitty gritty details.

Anyway, I gotta just shut up and get on with it.

SO. During a beautiful, warm Saturday afternoon sometime in late September, my sister-in-law hooked me up with her co-worker’s black lab named Margo. We met at a beach near the Rhode Island border. Oddly enough, despite the perfect weahter, we had the entire beach to ourselves. Great weather + docile dog + beach + new camera lens = Everything’s going to come out perfect without much effort. Right?

Well. Not quite.

First, the sun. OH GOD the sun. There was not a cloud in the sky. I purposely scheduled it for a late afternoon shoot, but still the sun was everywhere, bouncing off the white sand, the water, the dog’s fur. I got nothing but glare. Here she’s almost a yellow labrador. Lesson #1: get polarizer for lens.

Second, I had to contend with the leash. For the safety of the dog and others on this public beach, the leash of course was important. But it did limit the kind of shots I could get. I need to learn to work with it while shooting, and then afterwards at home when I throw myself a post-processing party with Photoshop.

I’m not great at it yet, but getter better I think.

Not terrible right? Man that sun is harsh though.

Here’s another shot where the leash was everywhere, but thought if it could be removed, the photo would be pretty decent.

The leash extends out from her back and out of frame to the left. I did use the clone stamp to clone parts of that yellow bushy plant over there and stamp out the leash. I didn’t attempt to remove any more leash from above the dog’s back because my eyes were failing me.

Well the light wasn’t getting any softer even as the afternoon went on, so I decided to try something different, and that was to shoot directly into the sun, with Margo all backlit and beautiful. I was seeing white spots for awhile, but the results came out exactly as I hoped it would, all warm and golden and soft. Also, I heart lens flare.

It was easy to Photoshop out the leash on that one.

When it’s not so easy to Photoshop out the leash, and you don’t feel like doing it, employ some creative cropping instead…

Ta-da!

Out of the 200-some photos I took, there were only about 10-15 that I really liked. That’s not much return at all. At this stage I can’t tell if the small number is due to me starting to get really picky about what shots are actually “good,” or if it’s because most of them really aren’t. Maybe that’s perfectly OK, so long as I can tell the difference. Must never stop working on the eye.