Animals Who Serve

In the UK, it is common to see blue plaques outside historic buildings. These plaques give information about the famous person or people who once lived within. However, a new blue sign in the town of Exeter has surprised residents by honouring not a person, but a pigeon! Mary the pigeon, who belonged to shoe-maker Cecil Brewer, delivered secret messages during World War II. More than 70 years after the war ended, it was decided that Mary’s home, the shoemaker’s shop, should be decorated with a blue plaque.

Mr Brewer offered Mary, his favourite bird, to the National Pigeon Service in 1940. She was sent to France with the aim of collecting messages and bringing them home. Mary made three trips which resulted in wounds to her neck, breast and wing, from gun fire and from larger birds. After she retired, Mary was awarded the Dickin Medal for Bravery, a prize given to animals who have shown great courage.

Only 70 such medals have ever been awarded. Other recipients include dogs who saved people from burning buildings and horses who controlled traffic after explosions. Of course, thousands of animals show heroism every day. There are stories of dolphins saving humans from dangerous situations at sea. Animals have also been observed helping other animals for no obvious gain. In some cases they protect smaller creatures, and in others adopt babies of different species.

The connection between humans and some animals is clearly deep, though not well understood. In the 1930s, the doctor Sigmund Freud started to carefully watch his patients when they came to see him. This was the start of ‘animal therapy’ which is widely used today to help people suffering from physical and mental illnesses. Studies have shown that interacting with household pets can lower stress. In addition, some American hospitals are now introducing larger animals: llamas and alpacas! Friendly, woolly animals native to Peru, llamas and alpacas are unfamiliar and intriguing to most patients. They appear to bring comfort to all they meet, from hyperactive children to lonely elderly people.

A hospital in London also hit the news recently when it began using snakes as therapy animals for depressed patients. One advantage of snakes is that they demand a lot of care, which allows the patient to focus on something other than their own thoughts. Looking after a snake is a specialised skill that encourages responsibility and pride, therapists suggest. It can be a reason to get out of bed in the morning. Moreover, a snake will never judge you – unlike a cat, who is likely to walk away when bored!

Anyone who has ever kept a pet knows the power of the human-animal bond. In Britain, over 40% of households have a pet, while in the USA and Australia the figure jumps to over 60%. Pets calm us down and reduce our blood pressure, so the data make perfect sense, although most owners are not aware of these benefits. But from chickens to sheep to mice, pets seem to return our love. They become part of the family, and are there for us when times get tough. Not every animal can be a medal-winning hero, but they’re all heroes to their owners.

Taking Better Photographs: Advice for Beginners

The Daily Standard interviewed four people about their exercise habits.

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Forget about expensive equipment because the most valuable piece of kit you have is your eyes. The winning entry in a recent photographic competition was taken on a phone camera, which just goes to show. You have to learn about composition – how to organise the lines and shapes in an image. If something catches your attention, photograph it in as many different ways as you can think of. Shoot familiar subjects from above, below, or another unusual angle to make them new and strange. Colour is important too, so look out for combinations like bright green leaves against red bricks, or a clear blue sky behind a yellow bird. By all means study the techniques used by famous photographers but try to develop your own individual style. Really, there are very few rules. Trust your creative ideas, experiment constantly and allow yourself to fail.

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Keep your camera with you all the time. You never know when you’ll encounter an interesting subject; the best shot I ever took was on a near-empty Sunday train, a portrait of a woman with an old leather suitcase and two massive dogs. For me, those unexpected moments are still the best part of my job after 25 years. When I started out I did weddings, family portraits, that sort of thing, but these days I shoot celebrities for magazines. You learn that human beings have a lot in common. To capture someone’s personality, you have to spend time getting to know them. Most people have a range of expressions they usually wear for the camera. It’s your task as a photographer to catch the ones they wear in private! Having said that, if the subject isn’t happy with a photo you should never use it. Respect is essential because a good or bad reputation spreads fast in this industry.

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My advice is simple: spend as much as you can afford on your camera and accessories. That’s not to say it’s impossible to take good photos on a cheaper model. But as you become more skilled, you’ll really appreciate the higher image quality. A common mistake that beginners make is to think that one lens is enough. Most camera bodies come with a prime lens, which has a fixed length and sees the world much like the human eye. You’ll also need a zoom lens, which appears to bring your subject closer and is useful for photographing wildlife. And if you like landscape photography, you should consider a wide-angle lens that increases your view from left to right. Tripods are useful here too, because nobody’s hands are as steady as they think. After just 0.016 seconds you’re likely to get ‘camera shake’, resulting in an image that’s out of focus.

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I’ve always admired the French photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson, who talked about ‘the decisive moment’. He would wait for hours, sometimes days, at a site that interested him, like at the top of a flight of stairs in a town square. When someone walked into the space he’d try to use them as an element of his composition, with incredible results. You might say Cartier-Bresson’s method is irrelevant today, when mobile phones can take several pictures a second and we have editing tools, but I’d disagree. A good photograph should be as considered as a painting. There’s been an increase in the quantity of photos taken over the last decade, but not the quality. That’s a shame. To my mind, the only thing that will raise the quality is a return to patience.