So my client Lizzie fosters kittens. She has fostered a lot of them, giving them a great shot at life. But she just had a foster fail. Hobo Joe, the smoky gray kitten. Something about Hobo Joe melted Lizzie and her husband Ryan's heart and before you could say "meow," Hobo Joe was theirs. They had two cats but one recently passed away so they had a permanent vacancy in the household.

We had a great kitten shoot. Hobo Joe was just so tiny. He was only six or seven weeks old when we had his photography session. And you know kittens... so adorable.

For me as a pet photographer, my hierarchy in terms of photographing dogs and cats is: 1) dogs are easiest 2) kittens are next easiest 3) then cats and 4) puppies. Puppies are hard, my friend. Super cute. But hard. Kittens just fly all over the place and make it really fun. And just as an aside, who isn't surprised to learn that cats are actually easier than puppies?

Now Lizzie was also fostering a couple of other kittens. Mario had a little skin condition going on and was wearing a little sweater because he kept opening the wound. He wasn't ready for the camera. But the other kitten was Capri, who had already been adopted but wasn't yet old enough to go to her new home. It turned out that Capri was quite the model. We use teasers to get their attention. But Capri would just give you looks all day long. Her leaping images are astounding and we did use the toys on those.

One thing I noticed when I went to Lizzie and Ryan's home. They had this great, tall ampersand sign with lights. I saw that and knew I wanted to use it. Imagine my delight when the lights actually worked! Woo hoo! We put both Capri and Hobo Joe on there for solo photos and also together. It was pretty astonishing that they stayed up there. Lizzie was holding the edge of it to make sure it wouldn't tip over but it was pretty solid. And voila, we got some spectacular ampersand photos. I liked these so much, I entered one of them in the Professional Photographers of America's International Print Competition. You nave to name them so I called it Me & You.

Here are a few images from the session and Hobo Joe's slideshow!