In preparation for the videocasts I will be doing this year, I worked on my first one just this week.

Although I have set up eight other videocasts (featuring other photographers and what they do) I went to work on one I could do immediately, which is myself doing a shoot.

As I didn't want to film myself doing a shoot of a person, I decided it would be rather fun to photograph my cats and video the process.

Normally, I use the word "shoot" when referring to taking pictures, but saying "shoot my cats" just tends to come out wrong. This particular post will only focus on the photoshoot itself. Another post in upcoming weeks will focus on the video process.

I decided to shoot in my living room. I chose this because this particular room has a large set of patio doors that I could open up and use for diffused sunlight. Since the day was overcast, that worked perfectly. I put up my portable 6' table directly across from it. A dining room table would work equally well.

Since my goal in this shoot was to work without "studio stuff" I used two bowl-style lamps for light. You can pick these type of lights up at any home improvement store. I criss-crossed them to dispel shadows, and I used the Gary Fong puffer over my camera's built in flash. That way, I would have the fill light I needed, but I wouldn't blow my picture out.

The infamous "seamless background" isn't as hard as you might think. In my case, I used heavy white fabric that I basically pinned up to the wall! You can get the same effect using a white sheet, as long as it's thick enough. I pinned it to the wall and then placed it on the table, making certain that there wasn't a crease- it curved from the wall to the table. (For shots with people on it, you'd obviously have it draping to the floor.)

Immediately, I discovered the fabric had been folded up in its bag for too long, and it had huge creases in it. I put my assistant Jenny to work ironing, and she fixed that problem. The background doesn't need to be perfect, but not having huge crinkles and wrinkles in your background is pretty important in this case.

Initially I used my portrait lens, the 28-70mm f/2.8L but decided to go with my longer lens later- the 55-250mm f/4. I regretted that decision and I will explain why!

Since I was trying to go sans flash as much as possible, the longer lens didn't have a wide enough aperture to stop motion. To say that even simpler, it was like suddenly my camera wasn't fast enough. Have you ever taken a picture and it came out blurry because the person was moving? It was like that. When I changed lenses, my camera couldn't keep up with a moving subject (because I didn't have enough light).

And that cat moved. She was fine mostly- sniffing the background, climbing into the basket, inspecting the roses- but as soon as the clothing props were out, all bets were off!

The victim subject of the dress up was my eight month old kitten, Kitiara. Her nickname is Weasel-Cat, because she has a long face and super lithe body like a ferret. Weasel was fine until Jenny put the hat on her head. Immediately the cat was flopping around, twisting and kicking. She wasn't afraid of it, but was more so annoyed that something just got put on her head.

With my shorter portrait lens, I managed to capture a great photo, seen at the top of this post. When I had my long lens on, every shot was out of focus and blurry. If you're taking pictures of your own pets, use a shorter lens! If you don't have a camera with interchangeable lenses and you've got your flash off (which I recommend) your solution is going to have to be using every light in your house to get it bright enough for your camera.

Weasel also was very unhappy with the sunglasses. Both the hat and the sunglasses were purchased from a craft store, and were actually doll clothes for eighteen inch bears. Poor Jenny patiently tried putting the sunglasses on Weasel... and Weasel bit her in the finger. The one shot I did get with the sunglasses has the kitten moving forward and aiming for Jenny's finger.

Last but not least, I wanted to have my cat in a red feather boa. Why? I have no idea. I thought it would be cute, which it was, for about five seconds. A word of advice to people photographing their cats: cats think feathered things are dead animals and will go primal.

So, after the cat hunched up, growled, hissed repeatedly, and then ran down the hallway with her "kill", I decided that the photoshoot was successful! All the photos from that shoot are on my Flickr page, or you can browse them in the player below.

If you have any comments about this shoot, or have a question about it, please feel free to ask it in the comments section and I will reply there as well.