Working hard for the money

I just spent over 4 hours on a conference call and the only thing that will make me feel better besides a gallon of martinis is to process some photos of pets. YAY for pets! I'm smiling already.

I had the privilege recently of photographing Maritza's furry loved ones. A dog and three cats, swoon. One cat was snuggled deep inside a kitchen cabinet and she looked so comfy and cozy (and in the shadows) that I did not want to disturb her. So I harrassed the rest of them.

Once I get more proficient in Photoshop I'll try to edit out the broom stick thing behind his head. I did try to move them out of the frame before taking the photo, but as you can see I severely disturbed his cat nap as I attempted to reach over so I decided to keep the pre-shoot clattering at a minimum.

Poor Malachi. I was really making him work hard for the money.

It was clear after this shoot some of things I need to work on if I want to become a decent pet photographer. But I'll share those thoughts in another post. For the rest of the night it's martinis and baseball!

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Filed Under: Pet Photography

Weather barometers

I know it's getting cold out there when the boys start squeezing themselves into tight spaces. The less comfortable they look, the more comfortable they are. I walked into the office this morning and found the following pile-up:

Bunny is comfy, really. He was purring as I took this photo. Or maybe what I heard was his last breath  getting slowly pushed out by VanBuren's weight.

They really bug me sometimes. I spent all summer long shooing them off my office chair which is a cat fur magnet that no amount of vacuuming can dislodge, off the pile of papers on the desk, off the couch where they don't belong. I try to make their beds as enticing as possible but you'd think I had lined them with tin foil instead of yummy, plushy pillows.

Now suddenly they can't get enough of it. Now they're nesting. Happens every year. Cats are so weird.

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Filed Under: Cats

Lola

Thank you to everyone for your extremely kind words of encouragement about the start of Fat Orange Cat Studio! Ha! I sort of can't believe I really named it that. To give props where props are due, Duck came up with that name, after he shot down a whole variety of options, including yes "Bunny & Veebs." Much as we love our B&V, he thought as a biz it sounded too esoteric.

I have emailed those who got in touch about volunteering their time and pets for a quick photoshoot, as mentioned in the end of the previous post. But if there are more of you out there, don't hesitate to contact!

I was able to shoot another springer spaniel recently. Her name is Lola and she lives right downstairs. Her pelt is so baby soft. I want to turn her into a blanket. She is much stockier than Sadie (apparently the runt of her litter, I get it now) and has a docked tail.

It's really cute.

And check out her soft, serious eyes...

The day is never complete without a serious close-up of a doggy snout. Lola's more of a bayer than a barker. Whenever she's excited, she says, Ah-woooOOoooOOOoooOOOoo!

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Filed Under: Pet Photography

I has a dream

I have something to share! A little project that's been brewing for awhile now. Soft bubbles are popping at the surface. I wasn't going to share until it was little more stable, more off the ground, more official. But then I thought boo! Why be so careful? That's no fun. If I talk about it from the get-go, I will
1) write more. I have not been writing, not for lack of topics but for lack of discipline, and it gets harder and harder to write the less I do
2) be held accountable to follow through with my own plans which I fully admit I am very bad at doing
3) document each step of the journey for prosterity. It could be very interesting. Or not. We will see. But only if I write all this down.

And if I say it out loud to the internet, then there is just no going back right? Because I am counting on you guys to make me look foolish if I renege on my goal and don't give it my all.

So, today, right now, I am officially announcing to the world that I, me. Want to be. A.

 

PET PHOTOGRAPHER!

YAY! It feels so right it can't be wrong!

I spent the last several months just coming up with a name. Hardest thing ever. I didn't want to use my name. I didn't want the word "photography" in it. I wanted something a little fun, a little quirky, but not too cutesy. Most of all, I wanted to name it after this dude...

 

...who for the last ten years has been my muse and my inspiration. Sniff sniff I owe it all to you, VanBuren J. Meowcat. You may know him as Veebs, but to others he's also known as that Fat Orange Cat.

So Veebs is officially the mascot of Fat Orange Cat Studio! Yay for Veebs, I just knew you didn't have a set of oversized cat hips for nothing!

Right now my BFF Kitty's graphic designer husband is designing a couple of logos for me. I came up with something rudimentary myself but he's going to punch it up. They should be ready soon and I can't wait to see what he's delivered.

In the meantime, I have a portfolio that needs filling with photos of pets OTHER than Bunny & Veebs, even if they are the most photogenic critters in all of critterdom. I started off by using my friends' dogs to shoot. They happily obliged. My first client was this lovely springer spaniel who lives across the river in Somerville. I spent maybe 30 minutes to an hour shooting, and wow it was a lot harder than I anticipated! I didn't foresee myself getting so self-conscious and nervous. It was an instant switch, from Hey cute dog let me take your picture! to, Oh shit I have to know what I'm doing now but wait what does this button here do?

Practice makes perfect though and that's what I plan to do.

Here are a couple of photos from that shoot:

She is an extremely energetic dog but unfortunately I was not able to capture too much of her acrobatics since she had a hurt front leg . It didn't stop her from trying to run and jump though we tried not to encourage it. When she's healthy again I'm going to reshoot her at the park. I would love to get a shot of her airborne as she plays fetch, and have some ideas about how I want that shot to look. Can't wait to try it out!

MEANWHILE....

I have a couple more dogs to shoot, but I need more! Would you like to help me? If you live in the Boston area, have a dog or a cat and about an hour or so to spare, I would love to photograph your pet! It would be totally free, no money down, and as a token of my appreciation, I'll send you a complimentary 8x10 photo of your pet. If you're interested, send an email or leave a comment, if you have a dog tell me what breed it is - if you know - and I'll get in touch!

What do you say?

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Filed Under: Pet Photography

Bye, summer

Well. Summer's officially over. I've given up hope of having those final few days of unexpected, uncomfortable heat before I started pulling out the sweaters - I HATE pulling out the sweaters - but it looks like it's not to be. Haven't seen the sun in days, and tomorrow October comes. Already! As much as I like wearing my handknit socks, I choose you, flip-flops. I choose you.

Here is one last homage to summer, when we let Bunny out on the roof, supervised. His pink rabbit nose went into overdrive smelling all those outdoorsy city scents. I think he had a nice time up there. As did I.

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Filed Under: Cats | Life

Let's go Red Socks

I recently finished up my Red Socks, just in time to wear during the post-season.

I used the always scrumptious Sundara Sock Yarn in colorway called Claret over Scarlet. Love.

I made up the pattern as I went along. I cast some stitches with the red yarn, did a corrugated rib with the white yarn, and then did some form of ribbing with the red yarn, and then I when I came to the heel I used the white yarn, but then red for the foot, and then last but not least, went back to white with the toes. Et voila, Red Socks! How's that for a description?

They are slightly too large. I am wearing them now and even as I sit here in front of the computer, unmoving for the last 10 hours straight, they are sliding down and bunching around the ankles. I should have used a purl gutter rather than a garter so that the fabric pulls in more. Other than that, these socks kick ass.

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Filed Under: Completed Projects | Socks | Red Sox

Bunny officially hates me

Bunny wears the scarf I made using Sundara Yarn Fingering Silky Merino in Winter Skies.

For the first time in known history, he was not a very cooperative model. The photoshoot disintegrated very quickly.

 

Bunny is so mad that even from this blurry shot you can tell that green fire is shooting out of his eyes.

I'll get you next time, you wascally wabbit!

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Filed Under: Cats | Completed Projects

A happing ending

Pattern: Rambling Rose Cardigan by Laura Zukaite, from Interweave Knits Winter 2006
Started: January 2008
Yarn: 2 skeins Socks That Rock heavyweight each in Haida and Pond Scum (with plenty yardage leftover)
Needles: US 5 circulars

I wore RR out in public last night! And I got a million compliments! OK all of them came from Duck. In response to my repeated questioning. It's been ages since I've worn a handknit out in public - so sad - so I was feeling a little self-conscious, or something. That and the fact that Pond Scum is so very grellow, which I was totally into. I mean I still am. But when I stepped outside it became all RAR I'M GRELLOW RAR! and I got a little scared brandishing the grellowness about out in public so blatantly. It is very grellow right? That's sort of a hard color to wear.

But don't listen to me, because at the end of the day I love my RR and am thrilled with the way it turned out. It fits me to a T. I went down a needle size which I always do. The biggest modification was to make it longer, and to omit the intarsia scallop ribs from the body and the sleeves. I found the scallops to be a little much. Also, I was too lazy to knit them.

Of course there is that huge mistake of knitting a leaf motif repeat extra on the left front that on the right front, and seaming it all up before I realized what happened. I cried for about ten minutes and then I didn't care. Because unless you're looking for it, you won't notice anything's amiss. I did remove the 3rd button from the bottom, so that when I button up the entire cardigan, I could just sort of tuck the extra fabric underneath the button band, and there would be no extra buttons dangling by itself. There are some other mistakes I made here and there when knitting the intarsia but again, it's not there if you don't see it. (But from the photos below you probably will!)

Knitting the yoke in intarsia I will say was a pain in the freaking ass. I wouldn't do it again. Knitting in the yoke as written avoids having to seam, sure fine. But this is a cardigan, so you'd only have to seams the sleeves onto the body anyways. And having to seam raglan sleeves (which is what they are), the easiest of all sleeves to seam, is 10000% easier than having to manage 9 separate bobbins of yarn while you knit 200+ stitches back and forth. Then when you finally make it out alive, there are all the ends to weave in. I did not enjoy that process one bit, and if was done all to avoid seaming, then the yoking wasn't worth it for me. Otherwise, as first-time intarsia knitter, knitting intarsia was easy and a lot of fun.

So that's it! My first finished sweater of the year - better late than never! So thanks for sticking around to hear the end of the long and bumpy tale of the Rambling Rose...

THE END

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Filed Under: Completed Projects | Rambling Rose

My first bug portrait

I spotted my first real-life praying mantis yesterday while talking to my mom on the phone. It was walking across the fire escape outside the kitchen window. I hung up on her so I could take a photo. I made the "ts! ts! ts!" sound that I do with the cats to get their attention, and it apparently works for bugs too. It swiveled its head a perfect 90 degrees in a slow, fluid motion and looked me straight in the eyes.

HEEBIE JEEBIES!

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