New Orleans native Catherine Ledner has photographed Christina Ricci, John Cleese and Catherine Zeta-Jones for the likes of Entertainment Weekly, W and Newsweek magazines, but those portraits can't hold a candle to her playful, almost confectionery portraits of animals.

Ledner doesn't pull any grand stunts with her furry and feathered subjects; instead, she simply frames the critters -- pigs, pugs, armadillos, zebras -- against prim or whimsical, busy or downright overbearing wallpaper, and lets the contrasts speak for themselves. The result seems like something out of a delightfully twisted installment of the Eloise series.

A volume based on the images, Animal House, is due out in the fall, but you can browse the galleries on her website (click on archives).