LIFE & LEISURE
Entertainment I WAS recently intrigued by a conversation l had with 17-year-old Toorak College photography student Brittany Anwender at a Mt Eliza restaurant. Brittany has a passion for still life, portraiture and landscape photography. I caught up with the Mt Eliza student this week as she told me of her journey. “I only took up photography because I had a spare slot in my timetable and thought doing an art subject would be fun. After taking a few shots I was really happy with what I saw and thought I may be good at photography. My teacher has been a great inspiration to me and I quickly saw a huge improvement in my work from that,” she said.
It’s handy Brittany’s parents owned a photo lab, so they passed down some knowledge of photographic chemical process and gave Brittany her first SLR camera, which is now one of her film cameras of choice. “My parents fully support me and are happy that I have found something that I enjoy a lot. I hope to go and study photography at RMIT or fine art photography at Melbourne University. From there I will try and make a decision of what sort of career I want in photography.” Brittany also enjoys playing music a lot and is currently doing a project where she draws or paints a picture each day for a year. “I also like to create collages with
magazine cuttings and collect antique cameras as well. “I am also interested in fashion and design, running my blog, travelling, reading, art history and writing.” Can Brittany recommend a camera for all of us? “For a beginner who wants to take up film photography, automatic film SLRs are not too expensive these days and will give you a good insight to how cameras work, such as the shutter speed, aperture and the light sensitivity of film. For anyone who has trouble finding places to process their film, digital is a better option, and digital SLRs are becoming a lot more reasonable than they were for a basic model. I prefer to use the Nikon
with Gary Turner
Bright future: Brittany Anwender.
system. You don’t need the most expensive camera to take fantastic
A Grain Of Salt WE all feel sorry for the Queensland flood victims. That’s a given. Even Prince Charles “How wonderfully resilient you Australians are.” Fair enough. Give a donation if you can. Ditto the Victorian flood victims. But this feeding frenzy by the television stations and newspapers is too much. Then there’s the complaints, similar to our bushfire victims a year ago, blaming the government, the insurers and eventually the organisers-anything but nature. Lastly the politicians, taking lessons in how to show remorse. The more they show the more we judge? How ridiculous. Who dresses Julia? I’m surprised Shane Jacobson hasn’t somehow got into the act. “Dishonest, dishonourable and deceptive” says our man Greggy Hunt in response to the Wikileaks disclosure of Kevvy Rudd on whaling. These politicians eh. Talk about tongue in cheek. The real fascination is how the Yanks keep a record of everything and anything about every country in the world. So they don’t just spy on their enemies-they spy on everyone. Ditto England, Russia, China, Australia et al. Who are they spying for? Us? No-
photos; it all depends on how you use it really,” she said. On Brittany’s advice I purchased a Nikon SLR camera and my photography has improved, although l have a long way to go. One of Brittany’s images was recently displayed at Peninsula Community Theatre in Mornington: a black and white time lapse photograph of her sister holding a sparkler. Brittany was representing Toorak College. I am sure we will see a lot more of her work in years to come and some lucky newspaper may have her in their team.
with Cliff Ellen we don’t give it a second thought. So, they play their games for themselves. A world coterie of international wanking. Almost all of us come up against the legendary “Brick Wall” at one or sometimes more stages of our life. We either walk away from it, generally causing some psychological damage varying in degrees (of regret), or we climb over it after much stress, with occasionally handsome rewards to your state of mind. I went within an inch of walking away from two careers (?) but fortunately fell over just sufficient to maintain a shred of dignity. Ahh, but I never quite got there with the lovely Avril Brown. Madly in love for 3 years but never the courage to make my feelings known, she being the school captain and me a minnow. And now, almost 60 years later, I’m still regretting it. It’s a certainty she would have peremptorily dismissed me, but that’s not the point. That fear of refusal stayed for life. On the other hand as I’ve never asked a female out I’ve never had a refusal. “Tourism leaders on the Mornington Peninsula are looking outside the
region for ideas to boost us into the future.” Wow! We are all aware of the bottleneck along Point Nepean Road which will become total gridlock after the Peninsula Link is opened, so where to fit the extra tourists? Somers?Hastings? How about a giant mermaid in Collingwood colours this side of Frankston with ginormous physical attributes? A large “sqeeze in” sign on the left and “hurry out” on the right? I read somewhere that all opinions, in the philosophical sense, reach the same conclusion, that pleasure is our target. It may be a good job, a car, an obedient wife or husband, a grand final win or tattslotto but it appears to always equate to pleasure, or meaning. My problem is that in my twilight years I find it difficult to decide what “pleasure” really means, apart from a good feed of crayfish. I’ve bought lots of toys lately; a new flashy mobile phone with lots of Apps (?) and other useless items. Why? This twilight period has strong similarities to my very early childhood. Is that it then? We begin as babies, live a life to a certain age, and drift back to child-
hood? Apparently. So it boils down to crayfish, cigarettes, beer, a grumpy bum attitude...and the increasingly rare fantasy? A word of advice to all you oldies out there in MP land: I notice there’s two crowds heavily advertising how you will get what you’re entitled to from Centrelink-at a price. Disregard! A simple appointment at the depressing Centrelink office will tell you the full story, for free. This time next year there may be nowhere to have a smoke with a coffee or a beer, thanks to Teddy’s lot, not that the opposition is any different. And then? Why of course-reduce .05 to .02 or even zero. And then? A ban on fat people appearing in public? Let’s all bring a thermos, a slab and ciggies, and meet at the Rye ocean beach (I refuse to call it St Andrews) every February 29. An old world celebration devoid of the “we know what’s best for everyone” mob. All welcome, apart from psychiatrists, politicians, psychologists, financial advisers and doctors. “It’s not the same anymore; it’s not the same when you walked
right out that door”...Lah de dah. [PS: I’m advised by my son (son’s know everything) that I’m also a “we know best” type, but with opposite views. Fair point, but I’m opposed by nature to what George Orwell described as “groupthink”] “I am monogamous from time to time, but I prefer polygamy and polyandry.” [Lady Carla Bruni-Sarkozy] “Don’t part with your illusions. When they are gone you may still exist, but you have ceased to live” [Mark Twain] Brevity is the soul of wit, said Shakespeare (or was it Polonius?) so I’ll shut up. Cheers...cliffie9@bigpond.com
Mornington Peninsula Camera Club The Mornington Peninsula Camera Club is one of the oldest, established photographic clubs on the peninsula, with it’s beginnings at Red Hill many years ago. At our club we endeavor to cater for all levels of competence, from real beginners to the more experienced members, encouraging them to challenge themselves and try new ideas. If you would like to join our club, we meet on the 1st Thursday of the month at the Benton’s Square Community Centre, Benton’s Road, Mornington, starting at 7:30pm. New Members are always welcome – for further information, please call either Graeme on 5975-1260 or Maree on 5975-0454.
Clockwise from left: Best Large Print in ‘B’ Grade, ‘Georgianna McHaffie’ by Judith Meier Best large print in ‘A’ Grade, ‘The Cob’ by David Pycroft Best Small Print ‘A’ Grade, ‘Greengrocer Cicada’ by David Pycroft Best Monochrome for 2010, ‘Bearded Dragon’ by Jackie Jones
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Mornington News 27 January 2011