I took a lighting stand and a radio controlled flashgun to Chester Zoo this morning and spent a long time in the Monkey House. It was good portrait practice, but those monkeys did not take direction very well …

One thing I noticed – you know how most animals in zoos totally ignore the human audience? The enclosure windows through which we gaze at the inmates must seem like a TV in the corner of the living room to them, always on, always boring. However, when I set up the flashgun on the lighting stand next to the window, it was noticed and gazed at intently by a number of the monkeys. Not completely institutionalised, then.