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

{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!

I’ve been taking breaks to do some shooting for myself – with my camera phone. My favorite places for inspiration: various public alleys in Boston, the new Jonathan Adler store on Newbury St, and Anthropologie on Boylston St.

I have a small window in which to post these photos before I will bury it with other posts so that my sister-in-law Meg will not know that I have plastered her face all over my blog. She did say it was OK but I also know once she sees them she’ll get all embarrassed. Anyway she’s traipsing about in Italy right now, attending the wedding of a former co-worker whom she now rarely sees – this friend living in Italy and all -  so as a wedding gift Meg wanted to give a little portrait of herself. The premise was to have grab a few shots of her around Boston but with some Italian literature visible, ie she’s at home in Boston but thinking of faraway places where old friends are…Meg dreaming of Italy.

OK! So the premise might be a little cheesy! She’s holding travel books and chewing thoughtfully on pens, looking off into the distance…not exactly artfully or subtly done! But behind the scenes this was a really enlightening and fun exercise for the both of us. It took awhile for the shoot to get to “fun” because even though it was her idea, Meg was a NERVOUS WRECK the moment I pulled out the camera.  Finding nice spots with good lighting and/or backdrops, fiddling with the camera controls, pressing the shutter were the least of my worries. The subject NOT BREATHING out of nervousness was the biggest.

It is a very symbiotic relationship, this whole subject and photographer thing. I really need to work on ways to make people subjects comfortable. It really isn’t easy being in front of a camera when you’re trying to pretend that you’re not.

So here are some shots. We met at the Boston Public Garden after work and posed at the Swan Boat docks.

What IS she thinking about? France? Spain? The Grand Canyon?

Then we headed to the Boston Common.

Since it might not be clear to the recipient where we are, we took some shots in next to a t-shirt cart. But look, she still has her Italy books! Our “Meg Dreaming of Italy Whilst in Boston” theme remains intact!!

Some shots near Frog Pond in the Common. I was ALL OVER the fading sunlight. Mmm yummy yummy delicious sunlight.

But I showed Meg the photos, and she said, “My head is glowing” in such a way that indicated she did not like that her head was glowing. I was like, WHAT?! That is on PURPOSE. It is sun flare! How can you not like sun flare? Do you know how proficient one has to be in order to shoot sun flare?

So lesson learned is that thoughts like the last one I had isn’t something the subject will give two craps about, if it makes their hair look like “straw.” Or their nose look “honking.” Or their forehead look “in need of Botox.” Or their hips look “terrible.” Hey. I just remembered why I enjoy shooting animals so much! Heh.

But OK, no more back-lit shots. We moved to the bench on the other side, so that Meg was facing the sun. I normally don’t like shooting from this vantage point because everything is just too evenly warm and golden. But the sun was really fading by then, lessening the degree of golden-ness, and I post-processed the image to black and white which I thought looked really great.

I think she looks posed but relaxed and natural.

This is the shot she chose to give her friend. I thought she looked great in all the shots, but this was my fave.

Now that I’ve posted photos I guess it’s only fair now to post some photos of myself that Meg took. I look extremely silly in these. And stoned in one. It really is difficult being in front of the camera, especially without direction!

Makes me appreciate even more just how much a photographer needs to do in order to get great pictures – and lot of it has nothing to do with a camera.

Thank you to Kathi of Bark Place and Washington Gateway for having me participate in the “It’s a Dog’s Life” event at SOWA Open Studios this past Sunday! It was a lot of fun and a pleasure meeting fellow dog-lovers and residents of the South End. I love living here! (Sick of hearing me say that, are you?)

VanBuren, the fat orange cat himself, will draw the an entry from the raffle bowl tomorrow and the winner of a photo session with Fat Orange Cat Studio will be announced on Thursday!

In the meantime, here are some scenes from Sunday. See the full gallery of dogs here.

I have so much to talk about, including some of the products displayed on the counter. I don’t think I’ve ever described them much on this blog. So in addition to the usual framed and matted 8x10s and 5x7s, I displayed 11×14 examples of Mounted Prints – prints adhered to thick fiber board and ready to hang – and cool mini accordions. The Mounted Prints I have been offering for some time now, and am pleased that clients have been going for them. If you’ve ever been to the South End Buttery, all the large prints you see there are Mounted Prints. I’ll be showing more examples of those and some other products in an up-coming post. It’s been on my to-do list for some time!

And as an aside for fellow camera-lovers out there, will someone tell me how I ever manged to shoot for so long without a full frame digital camera?! I’ve been using the Nikon D700 exclusively since I got it just several days ago — for this event, for a dog client shoot and a human being shoot (gah!). The 50mm has not come off the camera and I am flabbergobstunned by the vibrance and sharpness of the images. And I like the way it CLICKS when I press the shutter. Such a satisfying, crisp little click.

See below Before & Afters. I shot in JPEG and Vibrance mode, manual settings and manual WB. The images on the left are SOOC. The photos of the right have had blacks and fill light increased a TEENY TINY bit. The second B&A had a little bit of color correction as well to remove the greenish tinge. Overall, in the right light or no, shots have been afreakinmazing straight out of the camera.

Nuts, right?! Can’t wait to share more!