Ping, our Siamese, is obsessed with climbing on top of our kitchen cupboards, which are no doubt covered in dust. It’s not clear from the perspective, but the top of his ear is millimetres off the ceiling in this picture. I bounced the flash to try to minimise the shadow. It took quite a few attempts to get the manual exposure down. This is F13 at 1/80th second, with the flash tuned down by -1/3.

We spent the night in Birmingham at the weekend and, like most of the rest of the country, there was quite heavy snow by domestic standards. We were staying on the 19th floor of the Rotunda building in a fab apartment – one of the nicest we have ever stayed in- which had slide open floor-to-ceiling windows. Actually not as dangerous as it sounds – there was a hip high barrier made from glass and tubular steel. This is a 5 second exposure at F8. It’s actually handheld, with the camera jammed up against the side of the window frame. It’s also manually focused using the Live View magnification. Surprisingly short depth of field, given the aperture.