News & views, expert advice + top product picks!

August 2014

MRSA IN DOGS: One woman’s fight

Choupette, the private life of a high-flying fashion cat

Pets in motion: photography tips by David Fairman

In our continuing focus on pet and animal photography, top photographer and film director David Fairman exclusively shares his insider tips for capturing moving targets.

1. Decide what you want to capture. This includes all

sport, dance, motoring and performance photography. You could be shooting a fast moving ballet, a football match or a

lively rock band. Whatever the subject matter work out the kind

of feeling or narrative you are after.

2. Find your best position.This is the first and most important decision once you arrive on your set, as you might

not be able to move later. Seek out a position that is good for

the light. In daylight, will the light be good for the whole

session, or would another position be better? What is the best

position to capture the event in the best way?

3. Look for interesting angles. While you are choosing this

position check that it offers the very best angle. Would it be

better to be much higher? How could you get yourself in a

higher shooting position? Would it be more interesting to shoot even lower, perhaps say through the grass at a polo match?

4. Long lenses are a must: Without a long lens, moving

targets are often difficult to shoot, as you are usually some

distance from your subject and a long lens can give you some excellent focus differential. Try a 300mm – 400mm for sports

and a 70mm – 200mm for dance or performance.

How to photograph moving targets

Photograph by/© David Fairman

www.petsmag.co.uk

5. Using fast shutter speeds well: Most moving subjects

need to have their action

frozen. This is simply done by

using a fast or short shutter speed, anything form 1/250

seconds to 1/1000 seconds. The

chosen shutter speed required

will depend on how fast the

subject is moving across the camera plane.

A person at the same actual

speed coming straight

towards you will be travelling slower relative to

your camera than it would

be if it travelled straight

across the frame. Try

experimenting and check the results to find the best

shutter speed to stop any

movement. If in a hurry

then use 1/1000th second to

be safe.

6. Prepare to up your ISO: With a very fast shutter speed

and an ISO setting of say 200,

you might find that your f stop is wide open at F2. But this will

give you very little latitude of

focus. In other words, at F2

your subject might not be still

in focus as your subject moves in and out of focus. This is

especially difficult in a moving

target. The best strategy is to

up your ISO or sensitivity of

your camera. If you change your ISO to 800, this would

give you an extra two stops.

You would now be shooting at

F5.6 which will give you more

depth of focus and enable you

to keep your subject sharp.

7. Learn anticipation by getting it wrong: The best

way to learn anticipation is to

get it wrong. Say you are trying

to shoot a horse jumping over a

fence in an arena. You keep

trying to shoot it but keep

missing. Keep missing and keep

shooting these missed shots until you train your

anticipation subconsciously.

Once mastered, your brain will

tell you how to anticipate this action every time. Do not ever

be afraid to fail as you will learn

from all of these failures and

produce that great shot that

you have had the patience for.

8. Manual or auto focus? Auto-focus can be useful, but

for most moving pictures I

would recommend a manual

focus mode. This is because often you have to wait for your

subject to enter the focused

area of your frame. This makes

shooting in auto focus mode

very difficult. Use manual focus and set it at a point

where you want to shoot

your subject.

This will be a focused

position in which the subject will often have to move in to.

9. Concentrating attention: In sports and

action photography is often very effective to concentrate

attention on your subject.

The easiest way to do this is

to ensure that the

background is out of focus while your subject is sharp. Use

a long focus lens of 100mm to

200 mm and an f stop from F2

to F4 and you will then have a

nicely out of focus background which will concentrate

attention on your sharp subject.

10. Blurring the background: A blurred background is quite different to

an out-of-focus one. The best

way to do this is to pan your

camera following your subject

using a much slower shutter speed than normal for an action

shot.

Photograph by/© David Fairman

www.petsmag.co.uk

Try panning your camera with

your subject at say 1/15 second

for most speeds; this works

best with subjects moving

directly across your frame. A lens of shorter focal length can

be used to pan. You will be

surprised at how good these

pictures can be.

11. Panning with a tripod: Though panning hand held can

work well, it will be that much

better if you employ a normal

tripod with a good pan-and-tilt head. Your experimentation

will be repeatable and the pan

will be much smoother and

straighter. With a good tripod

and some smooth panning you could easily get some great

pictures here.

12. Differential Blur: Blurring part of your subject or even your entire subject can

create a great sense of

movement. Say you are

shooting a group of military

drummers marching towards

you.

You have estimates that because they are moving

towards the camera a shutter

speed of 1/125th second should

stop their body movements but

their hands beating the drums are moving much faster. So you

shoot the picture at 1/125th

second. The result is a sharp

picture of the drummers with

their hands slightly blurred giving a wonderful sense of

movement. These kinds of

shots, where one part of the

subject is moving faster than

the other gives us the opportunity to shoot

differential blur that can be so

effective.

13. Will built in flash work? I never like to say no but this is

an absolute no-go. Do not use

any built in flash on your

camera for the main light on

action pictures. It will stop the

action but will make your

picture too flat. The only time

you should use it is for a fill in light. If you have access to

separate external flash

lighting not built in to the

camera, then you can really

stop action very well in a tiny fraction of the second when

the flash goes off. Then, light

your subject in the same way

you would any other subject.

14. Sports mode on your camera: Some cameras have a

sports mode on them. It can be

useful to set up your camera in

this way. Alternatively, you could put your camera on

shutter priority to stop

movement or for panning.

Be careful that you have enough f stops to cope with the

exposure. Your camera should

tell you if you are about to be

under-exposed. If it does tell

you, then increase the ISO or sensitivity levels. Be careful and

check your results. Beware of

the camera taking too many

decisions for itself.

These strategies are taken from David Fairman’s best selling book Take Great

Digital Pictures in 24

Hours. Available from Amazon.

Photograph by/© David Fairman

www.petsmag.co.uk

Choupette, The Private Life of a High-Flying Fashion Cat

Photograph by/© Karl Lagerfeld

Choupette is a beautiful book

about a beautiful cat. The

photography is by owner Karl

Lagerfeld and the compilation

is by Patrick Mauriès and Jean-Christophe Napias.

As celebrities go, Choupette is

lovely. She is a beautiful

Birman cat, a breed known for

their affection and loyalty. The blueness of her eyes has been

incorporated in much of

Lagerfeld`s recent design and

indeed Choupette’s face has

been the inspiration for clothing, accessories and

advertising icons.

Indeed Karl Lagerfeld produced

a whole range of designs

around “Choupette blue”.

In all of this, Choupette is a

globetrotting feline with a

minder and cordon bleu tastes.

Sophisticated menus of food

are prepared for her and feature in the book. In later

sections, the obsession with

Choupette gives way to gently

philosophical musings on the

nature of cats and there is a particularly fascinating gallery

of cats with their either

celebrity owners or appearing

in iconic contexts such as “Cat”

in Breakfast at Tiffany’s with Audrey Hepburn.

As the book quotes,

Collette :“there is no such thing

as an ordinary cat”, nor would

Choupette ever feature as being anything other than

extraordinary with her fabulous

looks and famous owner…

The book has within it a tacit

nature of our acceptance of cat

habits and the nature of the unconditionality that they

generate in us. It is this very

feature that redeems it from

being otherwise the whim of a

well to do internationally known designer and

businessman displaying his

obsession to the world.

Actually, cats make most of us

display our neurosis publically. Anybody who known me and

my relationship with Lola, the

small “half price” moggie that

came to us for sanctuary and

Choupette the fashionata: with top model Laetitia Casta

Photograph by/© Karl Lagerfeld

www.petsmag.co.uk

never left four

years ago will

know that a fair

old few quaint

behaviours have developed in me

as a result!

Cats connect with

us in a way that

perhaps other animals do not.

They are loving,

attention-seeking,

playful and

dependant yet at the same time are

their own selves,

sometimes aloof,

distant, with their

own internal process.

Just as the ancient

Egyptians saw

cats touching the

spirit, it becomes very obvious that Choupette

has touched something very

fundamental in Mr Lagerfeld in

the very way that cats connect

with us all. The manifestation however is a glory of fabulous

photographs and musings that

make any cat lover smile and

connect rather than question

the particular attachment that one cat owner has manifested

and made public.

One gains the impression that

Mr Lagerfeld wanted to share

Choupette with the world rather than profit from the

publication of the book. She is a

beauty, but the truth is so are

all cats and they touch our

hearts in ways that we often

want to make large.

I completely relate to Karl Lagerfeld’s and the

contributors’ attempts to bring

to public awareness the sheer

joy of having a cat companion

in your life, a pleasure which many people deny themselves

and all the human

idiosyncrasies they trigger as a

result of their species common

traits yet nonetheless unique personalities.

This is not a

cheap book and

it’s an

indulgence,

much the same as sitting in a

restaurant

pondering

though an

expensive sweet menu deciding

to pick one for

luxuries sake

alone. For me,

I'm up for second helpings.

One slight

cautionary note,

when one

overcomes the reconciliation of

different

lifestyles and

thinks of

Choupette sidling up to the pilot of

Largerfeld’s private plane,

perhaps the Civil Aviation

Authority should also read this

publication!

‘Choupette The Private Life

of a High-Flying Fashion

Cat’ By Patrick Mauriès

and Jean-Christophe

Napias Photographs by Karl Lagerfeld is

published by Thames &

Hudson on September 22

2014 & priced at £12.95.

Review by David Cliff, MD of Gedanken.

Choupette with Madame Horn © Karl Lagerfeld

www.petsmag.co.uk

By Jill Moss, The Bella Moss Foundation

Last month, the long-running topic of antimicrobial

resistance (AMR) made

national headlines when David

Cameron announced a review

of the UK antibiotics market.

While the news was broadly

welcomed by those working in

human and animal medicine,

many were also keen to point out the bigger picture on AMR,

how bacteria will constantly

evolve to be resistant and how

the real solution lay in a joint

fightback by all healthcare professionals – whatever

species they treat.

Yet only one pet-centric

organisation dared to raise this point in the national media –

my charity, The Bella Moss

Foundation.

The origins of BMF The death of a cherished pet is

often an occasion of sadness,

but in my case it was a catalyst

for action. My ten-year-old

Samoyed Bella died in August 2004 of a misdiagnosed MRSA

infection.

Today, the charity I set up in

her memory helps hundreds of

animals survive MRSA and

other serious infections, thanks to better education and early

detection.

BMF asks pet owners whose

pets are sick to get their vets to contact our veterinary experts

who then intervene with

treatment and often turn cases

around. Its board of clinical

advisors give up their time

freely to help fight the spread of

unwanted infections and to educate on preventing the

transfer of diseases between

humans and animals.

BMF is unique; we are the only charity helping to bridge the

gap between human and

MRSA in dogs: Fighting for dogs like Bella

Happier times: Jill Moss with Bella.

www.petsmag.co.uk

animal health with regards

to resistant infections. Our

message is clear: we see a

world where AMR

infections are a rarity, rather than grabbing

headlines.

What we doSince its inception, the charity has worked

tirelessly to support pet

owners whose pets are at

risk and to galvanize the

vet profession to take better precautions in

preventing the spread of

infections. BMF has hosted

international conferences and

educational seminars for doctors, vets and nurses all

over the world.

The charity’s website hosts a

variety of information and

videos for reference and download, which browsing

owners and industry

professionals find useful.

However, people often get in

touch with us over the phone or via email with immediate

concerns about their pet’s

health and cross infection risks

in the home.

Every case is different and this means we want to provide

personal support for people

and their pets. Having a pet

with a resistant infection can be

isolating, people do not want to

approach you, family members

and other pets may be at risk,

hygiene in the home has to be

increased, and BMF advises

people on caring for sick pets, often when their own vets do

not have the time to go into

detail.

Most importantly, we strive to

educate owners and vets so that these infections are prevented

in the first place.

I am proud to say that Bella’s

suffering was not in vain, as we

have helped so many pets survive. I have become a lay

authority on government

committees and I represent the

pet owner voice in the press.

I am clear with every pet carer

on the simple steps that can

take to protect their pets from

infections:

- avoid long term antibiotics

use;

- ensure your chosen vet has good hygiene protocols in

place, and;

- keep pets healthy and away

from long-term hospitalisation

if possible.

Nobody gets paid at BMF; we

do this altruistically and rely on

volunteers and donations to

help others. Out biggest challenge is to present quite

complicated scientific material

to people in a way they will

understand. Currently, we try

to reach pet owners through our educational events and at

animal shows and soon we will

be developing e-learning

modules.

Suffering: Cashew the dog has MRSA

www.petsmag.co.uk

For vets and nurses we have a

website where best practice is

an example and we also

produce free industry-

endorsed infection control guidelines for practice staff.

The role of vets

With no enforceable standards

of cleanliness for the veterinary

profession, vets can choose whether to practice good

infection control but there is

no mandatory requirement for

them to do so. Is your vet doing

all they can to protect your pet from unwanted infections and

how would you know if they're

not?

A recent BMF pet owner survey

revealed 84 per cent of pet owners do not question use of

pet antibiotics and trust their

vets – but we can’t be

complacent. We must take

responsibility for our pet’s health and just like we research

other areas of our lives we must

carefully choose our veterinary

practice.

The fight goes on – will you help us?

BMF arose from a personal

experience and was initially

focused on MRSA. However,

with the development of so many other resistant bugs –

include e. coli and MRSP – it is

now having to constantly

update and expand our

resources, all with limited

funds and a dedicated skeleton

staff of volunteers.

I run the charity in my spare

time and I will never give up

because every animal we save is

a testimonial to Bella.

In October BMF is hosting its

first-ever one health

conference, aimed at vets,

doctors, pet owners and

Government policy makers.

The charity has come a long

way in such a short time but the

fight against AMR continues.

To find out more about the BMF story and the charity's work, or to make a donation, please visit our website. Any donations or support, however small, will go towards saving more pets in need.

Beautiful Bella: In happier times

www.petsmag.co.uk

Product PicksROBERTS ROVER: His master’s voice gets a makeover

The iconic Roberts Revival DAB radio gets a cute canine makeover courtesy of Clarke and Clarke's Rover design.

The Robert Revival has been decorated in many different ways in the past, but this retro dog and polka dot pattern really plays up on the 1950s look of the radio. It comes courtesy of textile designers Clarke and Clarke.

We can really recommend this wonderfully stylish and quirky radio - not only does it look great, but it sounds great too!

The radio has all the features you would expect - including rotary tuning and volume controls, station name display and a headphone socket.

The Roberts Rover is priced at £200. For stockist details please visit www.robertsradio.co.uk

The perfect travel guide for dog lovers

We love Phileas Dogg’s Guide to Dog-Friendly Holidays in

Britain. The travel guide is packed full of dog-friendly places

to stay and stop off throughout the UK. It’s a great gift for anyone who really doesn’t want to leave their pooch at home

or in kennels while they go off on holiday.

Writer Jane Common and her dog Attlee travelled the country

to find the best dog-friendly digs for their book which has leapt to the top of the Amazon charts since its release.

Anyone thinking about taking their dog on holiday anytime

soon should read this book first, and make sure to pack it in

the suitcase. It’s wonderfully browsable too.

Priced at £12.99 and available from Amazon.

www.petsmag.co.uk