Say Cheese!

By Clare T. 

Want to find out what goes on at Western’s Photography Club? Here’s an exclusive interview with two club members, Marc L. and Alex V.

CT: First question! Why did you decide to join the Photography Club?

ML: Well, I didn’t know anyone when I came to Western, and was told that the best way to meet people was to join a club. As well, photography has always been my passion.

AV: I joined photography club because I wanted to meet other people who were interested in photography, and learn new skills.

CT: So, what happens in a typical Photography Club meeting?

ML: It’s always chaos at the beginning! We’re never really organized! Usually we start by talking about upcoming events at school where photographers are needed, and pass around sign-up sheets so that members can volunteer to take photos.

AV: Every meeting, Mackenzie, our club leader, teaches us a new lesson about photography, on topics like framing and aperture. Then we go through the school taking pictures and applying the concept that we’ve learned.

CT: Why are you passionate about photography?

ML: Wow, that’s a hard question! I love how you can put so much thought into a simple medium. With photography, there is always more than one perspective, one way to look at something.

AV: It’s a form of self-expression through images, and gives you the ability to capture a moment forever.

ML: The feeling you get when a photo comes together is priceless. That moment when you know that you’ve taken a good picture, is just about the best moment ever.

CT: In your opinion, what is the best part of being in the Photography Club?

ML: I love being part of this club because I love teaching and being able to share my passion. I learn through teaching too. It’s also an opportunity to help others develop an appreciation for the art. Most people don’t understand everything that’s behind a great photo.

AV: For me it’s having the opportunity to do what I love and to meet new people.

CT: What’s the best picture you’ve ever taken? Did you set it up or was it spontaneous?

AV: The best picture I’ve ever taken is one of my friend skiing. It’s a really great shot of him with snow in his face. I guess you could say it was planned.

ML: The best picture I’ve ever taken was for a project I did for a photography class. The assignment was to shoot something with a new perspective. I glued martini glasses to a board with a background, and filled the glasses with different colored liquids. Then I tilted the board and set up my tripod on the same angle so that it appeared the glasses were standing straight, but the liquid inside them was angled. I love this photo because it teaches that what you see is not reality.

CT: Who or what got you interested in photography?

ML: I’ve asked myself this question so many times! When I was a kid, I had a really old and [terrible] point and shoot. Then I got an old camera from a dental office that used it for insurance photography and was selling it after getting an upgrade. One day, while skateboarding, I fell and smashed the camera to bits. I was really sad when it broke, and it was then that I realized that photography was something I had really begun to enjoy, and decided it would be worth it to buy myself a new camera. I’ve been taking pictures ever since.

AV: My dad got me interested in photography. It was always one of his passions, and he passed it down to me.

Cookie Column #1

By Amber Peters
I always love trying new recipes, but I’ve found the crème de la crème of cookies lies not in the newest and latest, but in a cookie I’ve known since before I can remember: my grandmother’s recipe for chocolate chip cookies. This is the recipe that brings back those childhood memories of cooking with my sister, Tasha on a Sunday afternoon, eating half the dough before the cookies even get in the oven. Being impatient, I’d always try to eat one before they had cooled, and would burn my fingers and tongue on the hot dough. The melty chocolate left traces on our skin, yet even with our faces covered in chocolate, we’d have just one more. Tasha would always say, “You split, I choose” and pick the bigger half, but she’d still end up begging me for just one more piece of mine. That classic mix of sugar, butter and flour, mixed with oatmeal and chocolate chips, comes together to make the most delightful chocolate chip cookie I’ve had both the chance to eat and the honour to make. And the dough is not too bad either…

Recipe for Nana’s Chocolate Chip Cookies

Ingredients:

• 1 cup butter 
• ¾ cup white sugar
• ¾ brown sugar 
• 1 tsp. vanilla 
• 1 ½ cups flour
• 2 cups oatmeal
• 2 tsp. hot water
• 1 egg
• 1 tsp. baking soda
• 1 tsp salt
• ¾ cup chocolate chips (approx.)

Instructions:

1. Preheat oven to 350° Fahrenheit.
2. In a large bowl, cream together the butter, brown and white sugar, and vanilla. Nowadays my Nana just melts the butter and stirs it in, but I personally like to work the butter and sugar together with a pastry cutter. Use whichever method best suits you.
3. Stir in egg and hot water.
4. Mix in dry ingredients and chocolate chips.
5. Roll dough into balls, place on a buttered cookie sheet and press down with a fork.
6. Bake for 10-12 minutes.

Source:
Brunner, Rose. Simply Delicious. 1988.

A Common Day’s Lunch

By: Amber P.
For some, it’s whatever they can throw into a paper bag before they run out the door in the morning. For others, it’s a few dollars’ worth of food from the cafeteria. But, for me, it’s a little bit of a ritual. No, it’s not grand or noteworthy, but the truth is that we all have to eat, and if we have to do it, we might as well do it well.

I remember that cold December afternoon when I rushed into the house, searching for the bento box that my parents had bought me for Christmas. It wasn’t exactly a surprise, since I had found the site and the model, and had even typed the order in myself, simply passing the computer over to my mom for her to type in her credit card number. Still, the excitement was not any less. Out of care for the precious contents, I slit through the tape, carefully opened the box, took out the crumpled Japanese newspaper, and opened the box within the box to find, well, another box – namely, a bento box. It was even more beautiful than it had seemed in the pictures. It was sleek and black, with an optimistic four-leaf clover on the lid and an even more optimistic message inscribed in gold letters on the cover: “you can do anything if you try”. Naturally, I had no idea how to read the Japanese calligraphy, but I had read the translation on the website and that was good enough for me.

Of course, it’s not only the box that’s important, but also what goes in it. For me, everything is important, because, honestly, I am a little bit of a perfectionist. And generally the things I do in life are quite far from perfect, but with my lunch each night, if I follow a few basic rules, I can find something so nicely put together and compartmentalized that it’s just perfect enough. For me, lunch presents a beautiful concept. Every night, partly by compulsion and partly by necessity, I make sure to fill up my bento box in its entirety, with something on each of the separate levels. Though, honestly, I don’t always abide by these rules, I generally try to fulfil my hybridized food guidelines. In my much-loved vegetarian Japanese cookbook, Kansha, Elizabeth Andoh describes that in each meal there should be five colours: white, green, red, black and yellow. This serves as a rule of thumb that in conjunction with the Canada Food Guide’s food groups of vegetables, grains, fruits and proteins (I don’t consider dairy to be much of a food group) ensures an acceptable level of healthiness in every lunch. The specific foods I include vary in an almost haphazard way based on the food in the fridge, but this adds to the moral, or lesson, for lunch, where food is not wasted but instead married into a whole as a complete meal. Most commonly, however, I will have a simple lettuce salad on the bottom level with either mustard or pomegranate dressing, and always with an eighth of a napkin carefully folded on top so I never have to finish my lunch with an unclean face or hands. And so, as I chew the last bits of my lunch and wipe my hands clean, before an afternoon exam, I can close the lid and remember the encouraging message: I can do anything if I try.

Mustard Dressing (fast-and-easy style)

• 5 tsps oil (I prefer olive) 
• 4 tsps vinegar (I prefer sherry) 
• 3 tsps mustard 
• 2 tsps honey 
• ½ tsp dried thyme 
• ½ teaspoon herbes de provence (herbs can be changed based on preference and availability)
• salt and pepper to taste

Combine all ingredients in a water-resistant container and close with a lid. Shake until combined.

Reference
Andoh, Elizabeth, and Leigh Beisch. Kansha: Celebrating Japan's Vegan & Vegetarian Traditions. Berkeley: Ten Speed, 2010. Print.