Kitty Cat Diary 2004

Kitty Cat Diary | 貓咪日記

The Kitty Cat Diary is a photo diary of my adorkable wife, and it's what happens when a photographer marries a woman who doesn't mind having a camera pointed at her during everyday life. Elena (A.K.A. Kitty Cat, because my nicknames for her all revolve around the theme of a cat.) is my favorite subject to photograph--there's just something very theraputic about grabbing a camera and capturing the person you love the most in the world, while combining that with creativity and aesthetic sensibility. This interaction has brought us a lot of joy over the years and captured a lot of precious memories. If you want to get to know Elena better, her bio is the best place to start.

Since these are spur-of-the-moment snapshots, it's best to enjoy them simply as casual fun instead of serious photography (you can find more serious photography in other areas of my site). A wide range of camera were used to shoot these photos--from professional cameras to casual compacts and smartphones. You can find out what photography gear I shoot with in the FAQ section.

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One of the dresses I partially redesigned. The original was a bit too conservative and sparse, and I altered it for a more fashionable modern look.

Kitty Cat looking down from rootop. (We lived on the seventh floor, with NO ELEVATOR. Law in China at the time was that you only need to put an elevator in your building if it's higher than seven floors.)

Boarding the plane--on our way home from Hangzhou. I think Kitty Cat's ponytail is adorable.

Kitty Cat at West Lake in Hangzhou. She had just gotten some custom design qipao dresses tailored for her (including some of my designs), so she wore a couple of them while walking around West Lake.

Kitty Cat hunting for sunglasses, beacuse being the giant dork she is, she lost her very expensive pair of Armani sunglasses at a dessert shop.

Kitty Cat climbing seven floors (our building didn't have elevator!), and me appreciating her cute little behind.

Kitty Cat shopping for groceries. At the time we lived in China, it was very hard to find decent imported food in the city of Fuzhou (though things got a litter better a few years later). We were always worried about food safety issues (China is notorious for it. Just google "food safety in China" and you'll see), and that actually became the main catalyst in us moving back to the States (for a second time) in 2012.

Kitty Cat reading a sad book about a father and his little girl who died young. (This is right around this time I switched to the Canon 1D Mark II and retired the Olympus C3030Z.)

The above animated GIF is Canon 1D Mark II's continuos shooting, at at 8.5 frames per second (this was before DSLR's could shoot video).

This was the first photo session I shot with the Canon 1D Mark II. I was immediately in love with the camera, because it ate the C3030Z for breakfast in every single performance comparison test I did. And it should, since it cost more than five times just for the camera body. I ended up shooting the 1D Mark II for the next eight years.

Starting from 2004, was when I started shooting with the Canon 1D Mark II, and I was much happier because finally I was able to shoot in ways the C3030Z wouldn't allow. What's interesting is that ten years later when digital camera technology had advanced, I started shooting occasionally with compacts and smartphones again. However, I eventually realized that no matter how advanced digital camera sensors become, the inherent physics of small sized chips just can't do what I need in my photography, so I ended up with a satisfactory compromise in the Micro Four Thirds system for traveling (from 2014 and on), and full-frame system when shooting at home.

All entries after this point were taken with the Canon 1D Mark II. A few years later, other cameras would join in. The 1D Mark II was finally retired in 2012.

Kitty Cat lounging in her favorite spot--my closet, which she calls "her cat house," just as I was tearing everything down for packing and moving out of Malaysia.

Around that time, I was extremely unsastified with the Olympus C3030Z, being fed up with all of its limitations. Because of that irrepressible malcontent, I took very few photos while we lived in Malaysia. Looking back now, I totally regret it, because life's memories are precious. When you go and live in a country you've never lived in, that's the perfect opportunity to keep a visual record of your life there, and to let my dissatisfaction with a camera's performance stop me from recording those precious memories, was just stupid.