If, like us, you keep domestic pets then you will want to photograph them and there's certainly no shortage of pet photos in our house.

I prefer to photograph them doing outdoors doing what they do naturally, but occasionally a studio shot makes a nice change such as this photo of one of our terriers.

For a photo like this you need an unobtrusive background of a neutral colour that won't interfere with the subject. Animals are not going to sit around holding a pose for too long and so flash is the best option for lighting. I use bounced flash or a diffuser to eliminate shadows.

High shutter speeds are the order of the day when working outdoors as animals are likely to be on the move. It also helps to work with a zoom lens so that you can constantly reframe them as they move around. If your camera has the ability to take rapid multiframes then so much the better. This technique was employed to photograph this springer spaniel undergoing agility training. I used a long focus lens prefocused onto the rail and hit the shutter as the dog jumped. That way I had around eight frames of its progress over the bar. The combination of a high shutter speed and the telephoto lens set to a large aperture results in the background being blurred thereby keeping the attention on the dog.

I love the way that it's looking across at it's owner as if to say, "Am I doing this right?"

Here's three foals getting in some early training for the racecourse.

AND THE WINNER IS ......