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

Bunny and Veebs rang in the new year with a little change of sleeping venue. I moved their cat bed from the office upstairs and placed it on top of the radiator cover in the living room. An extra cozy room with a view! Dan joked that by morning we would have a savory cat pie all cooked up. It started snowing and I caught Veebs taking a break from his pre-nap bath to admire the falling flakes (and then later that night, the New Year Eve’s fireworks. Although he wasn’t really too thrilled with that). Later Dan and I ventured outdoors for a little winter walk and mini photo shoot. Eee! I love shooting in the snow! So crisp, clean and bright. Boston looked like a large-scale gingerbread town dusted in confectioner’s sugar and white frosting. I feel like this is really the first time I’m understanding my camera well enough to appreciate the beautiful lighting given off by the snow.

I’m looking forward to more snowy shoots in 2010!

Dan’s four favorite photos of 2009

From top:
Bunny Green Eyes: Dan says this photo is “simple, striking, and of a Bunny.” Bunny is Dan’s favorite cat so this selection is of no surprise. However, I’m not really crazy about this photo! Bunny looks in need of an exorcism. Dan keeps asking me to place it as the very first image in my portfolio, but I will never do it because we are about fresh and candid, not fresh and evil.

The Buttery Dogs: Madison, Harriet and Simon, from March 2009.
I asked why Dan liked this one, and he says, “This was hardest shots to get of all the clients you’ve had, and the payoff was awesome.”  I get the most comments from this photo that are usually along the lines of, “How did you get them to pose like that?” The secret: I didn’t. They chose this pose all by themselves! (Many, many thanks to owner Richard Gordon for encouraging me to hang my prints in his cafe-bistro.)

Dasha the 12 week-old French Bulldog, from June 2009.
Dan’s commentary: “I just love it.”

Bella the 11 week-old French Bulldog, from May 2009.
“A most mischievous face.”

Now, my four favorite photos of 2009

From top:
An Airborne Veebs: The fat orange cat is not so very fat that he can’t achieve lift-off. He was helping me practice freezing indoor action shots.  There was so much back and forth jumping between tables, and he did it all with a smile on his face. That’s my Veebs, a real team player.

Clive the Springer, from September 2009
This photo didn’t initially make the initial blogging cut, but then Clive’s owners ordered a large mounted print of it, and seeing it that size made a huge difference! Now it’s one of my very favorites. The stars on the bike, the flowers, the happy puppy – it’s all so fun and fresh!

Logan the 6 week-old Pointer, from April 2009
This was in instant favorite the moment I pressed the shutter. I was already excited we managed to get Logan to sit still alone on the stairs, but when Casey the kitty came into frame, slowly creeping down behind him with a what-IS-that-thing? look on her face, it took all my strength not to go completely bananas.

Kepler the 13 year-old Weimaraner, from November 2009
This beautiful dog was not a client. I was on another shoot in the Public Garden when we noticed him, from a distance, on a walk with his owner. All of us stopped for a moment to watch him stroll by in his wheels, and as they passed I quickly snapped two shots. I saw the Weim again on two other occasions, and suddenly realized I had met him before when photographing Pawsh Boutique’s grand opening event back in April 2009. He didn’t have wheels then, but was having difficulties with his hips. I emailed Mike, the owner of Pawsh, to ask if this was Kepler, and it was. He told me a new set of custom wheels were coming that week, and as a Christmas gift we arranged to have prints made for Kepler’s owner. A few days later, I notified Mike to tell him the prints we on their way…and he told me that Kepler had just passed away.

Later I received this message from his owner: I wanted to thank you for capturing these beautiful images of Kepler. It’s easy to love Kepler, he’s my best friend and he never once, through all of his injuries, gave up….both as a dog and a friend.

It may seem a little sad to end the new year on that note, but my intention is really quite the opposite. The photo of Kepler illustrates why I love photography and why I love our pets so much. Given the chance to flourish they will reward you in spades. And as pet lovers we will go to great lengths to keep our animals with us happy, healthy and if we can, a little bit longer.

So it has truly been a joy and a privilege capturing these kinds of moments and making them last. Just a little bit longer.

Thank you so much for all of your support in my first year of business, and to all the critters who’ve made the job so rewarding and fun. See you in 2010…

{Photos by Lisa Rigby Photography}

Yesterday was my birthday. I got a photo shoot to commemorate the day with my favorite guy (Dan) in my favorite place (a colonial burying ground) in my favorite city (Boston! So happy I get to live here!) with my favorite photographer (the wonderful Lisa Rigby, who has already sent me a whole slew of previews from yesterday that has made Dan and me squeal like little girls.)

It was nice being in front of the camera for once. I had a wonderful day.

ETA: More photos here on Lisa’s blog :)

Subtitled: My First Official Wedding Booking from Complete Strangers and Engagement Shoot
And sub-subtitled: What I’d Want as a Wedding Photographer

A recent engagement shoot but a post I meant to write months ago…

Let’s see, where do I start? I’ll start from the beginning. Back in September of last year I announced to a small group of friends both in my personal life and in the crafty community that I was going to start a pet photography business. One crafty friend in particular pointed her housemate Sarah to me. Sarah had just gotten a rescue puppy and wanted photographs taken. For whatever reason, I didn’t see her email until several months later, and when I did I could barely contain my excitement. And hoped I hadn’t put her off with my very late response. Because not only does Sarah have a dog, but she also has a custom letterpress and screenprinting paper business. I love paper. I love letterpress. So much. You ask anyone and they can corroborate.

So here I was, in need of some grown-up thank you cards, while she needed photos of her Simone. We were able worked out a swap. And it worked out beautifully. In case you haven’t’ seen it yet, here are my photos of her Lab mix Simone, and here are Sarah’s beautiful letterpress cards that I still have a hard time using. There is something magical about seeing your name and biz in the age-old art of the letterpress, knowing the effort that went into making each card one. by. one.

During Simone’s shoot, I remember in the car ride with Sarah and how we got to talking about paper, photography and all things weddings. She had recently gotten engaged to her boyfriend Rich, and had started a blog to document all the ideas and inspiration for her wedding.

We’re talking a little about our hopes and dreams.  I wonder if I would branch out into other forms of photography such as weddings (NO. Too hard), she’s describing her wedding and all the yummy DIY details and “mini-themes” that she’d like to incorporate. There was no date yet, but this girl knew what she wanted. And as she’s describing more, I started changing my mind about photographing weddings on the spot. I thought, This wedding sounds wonderful! Dahlias and horses! I could be niche wedding photographer for soley “homegrown” weddings like Sarah’s envisioning, and be really happy working with creative brides, I could! But she was thinking of using a friend photographer at that point, so I didn’t press. Not that I knew then if weddings was something I could or want to do anyway.

But I tell you, I went home that day and read her wedding blog from start to finish. I love how very wide-ranging yet specific her vision for their wedding is. The theme is Homegrown. Immediately that word brings very pleasant associations. I didn’t have to read the rest of her blog to immediately picture mason jars, hay bales, wildflowers, cows, sun low on the horizon, and for some reason, checker boards (that’s just me).

Giddy with inspiration after reading her blog, I googled:

intimate wedding
picnic wedding
shack wedding
cemetery wedding
wedding in the woods
classy DIY wedding
homegrown wedding

to see what was out there. I decided if I ever seriously got into wedding photography, that, those, would be my niche.

Fast forward a couple of months. I meet a Boston wedding photog (hi Lisa!) and second shoot with her on several events for experience which was really, really great. After thinking it over, I decide I want to get into weddings, make a blog post about it, but don’t really follow through with details, other than I want to do “specific” kinds of weddings. I wasn’t sure what my approach would be – narrow my focus right out of the gate, or just photograph as much as I could for more experience? Or maybe I should just hold my horses and concentrate on getting my pet photog business firmly rooted first?

But I threw that post up to just get it out there…and thought about Sarah and her wedding the entire time I wrote it.

So I was beyond flattered, excited, happy, SURPRISED when I get an email from her in mid-summer, asking me if I’d like to photograph her wedding. !!!!! was my response, and then a YES PLEASE, followed by a ARE YOU SURE? This was my first official booking and I couldn’t believe I was getting Sarah & Rich! The location is on a working farm in Maine! There will be cows and horses and dahlias in antique milk glasses that she’s collecting! There will be mismatched vintage china from all the antique shops she’s scoured in New England! There will be a lot of exclamation marks!! The only problem is the date – a whole year away. It can’t get here soon enough!

Now we are all caught up. Both Sarah and I are getting our dream weddings, hee hee. I’m so excited. We are a match made in heaven.

She and her fiance Rich aren’t a bad match either. :) This past weekend they came up to Boston from their home in Providence, RI for their engagement shoot. It was my first e-shoot and my extreme nervousness about it prompted me to go Type A and map out a possible shooting route. Since they got engaged in Paris (the boy knows how to do a few things right too), I thought it would be fun to make the shoot Parisian themed. Boston can look very European, you know, so it wasn’t hard.

We started off with cocktails at Bouchee Brasserie on Newbury Street, posed in front of a gothic-style cathedral, window-shopped at a Michel Delacroix gallery exhibit, walked down Commonwealth Ave mall (which was designed in the French boulevard style, did you know), and ended at the Boston Public Garden. They were fun, playful, happy, gorgeous. And cold. Oops!

The last shot is a mirrored photo of Sarah’s letterpress plate that will be used for their save the date cards. Isn’t it wonderful to be so creative? I can’t wait to see the real thing.

So, in short (ha ha too late for that), I was already very happy to have found my official Fat Orange Cat Studio stationer in Sarah’s Parrott Design Studio, so I am pretty much beside myself and honored that they’ve including me in their wedding plans. They are so fun and easy to work with, have so much class and style that I can’t wait to see how all their wedding planning unfolds. Check out Sarah’s vision and her lovely writing on her blog, Homegrown Wedding. And her custom stationery biz blog, Things Are Better With a Parrott.

Now! Back to your Thanksgiving plans. I have stuffed mushrooms and sweet gingery mashed potatoes to make!