Glen Braithwaite

- [Tara] We're broadcasting today from Ngunnawal Ngambri in Canberra. And we're here interviewing Living Memory and PPP 2021 finalist, Glen Braithwaite. How are you?

- [Glen] I'm well, thank you, Tara. Thank you.

- All right, so we'll get started. So I guess first off, if you could tell us a little bit about yourself and your photography.

- Yeah, absolutely. So I have been an army officer my whole life. So I joined the army at 17, and only last year I retired from the army after reaching the ripe old age of 50. But I've always been a photographer. I've always carried my camera with me while I was at bush. It was something that I always had. I'd always rather take a camera in the back of my backpack rather than extra set of socks. So it was always a bit sticky, but I could photograph things. So I had over 32 years of army life, and then I retired last year. But I've been tinkering around with photography and semi as a business. More recently over the last 10 years, a bit more in the dog photography world, Insane, but I started off in motor sports. And I went from motor sports into just general sports, went into pet photography for a little while, and because it was convenient and I love my animals. But more recently I've been doing a lot of para-athletics and disability sports, but I've always got a camera with me.

- Awesome. And with the Paralympics as well, it would have been pretty inspiring for you?

- It was fantastic. So I've got a lot of good friends here in Canberra, because a lot of the para-athletes come to Canberra to do a lot of their training and many live here. So it was great seeing some of my friends overseas competing, especially in the wheelchair sports. It would have been great to be there, but obviously with COVID you couldn't be. But I'm hoping that when the para-athletics kicks off again here in Australia, when Brisbane got the games, I'll probably be 60 by then. But I'd love to get out there with a camera again, but I will wait and see.

- Perfect. So did you want to tell us a little bit about your photo Trek for Shona Mai? And how that came about?

- Yeah, absolutely. So it was an accidental photo. I was walking my dogs literally in the part of the Bicentennial Horse Trail, which is just in front of my place here. And came across this chap dragging this cart with his little dog. And he had a big banner on the side of his cart saying, "Trek for Shona Mai" and a bit of a Facebook page on it. And I asked him who he was and what his story was. And I was so fascinated by Paul. I said, "Park yourself, I'll be back in five minutes once I've dumped my dogs and bring my camera back and let's just chat." And so meeting Paul, it was an inspiring moment, I think. So Paul, his daughter had committed suicide about a bit over a year and a half before I met him. And his way of dealing with the suicide of his daughter, who was in her 30s at that stage, was he decided he would walk from Adelaide to Canberra, trying to raise awareness for mental health. He had a petition he wanted to raise with government. He talked about increasing funds for suicide awareness and mental health. And so he started a 1,600 kilometre walk from Adelaide, and it literally took him 13 months to walk that. And the period in which he walked, it was throughout all of those big bush fires that were down south and the drought, and then all the other bad weather we'd had. And he arrived in Canberra on the day that COVID had also hit Canberra enough for parliament to say, "We're going to close our sessions, we're wrapping up." And so he literally arrived in Canberra after 13 months of walking on the day that the politicians backed up and left. And so by the time he got to us here, near my place, he had one day of walking left, he was going to spend the night at Pegasus Disability Riding Centre, not far from here, then go to old parliament house and park in the Tent Embassy Grounds, and then go and present his petition, and literally he arrived just a little bit too late. But listening to him talk about his daughter, and the things he'd seen and done while trekking, it was so inspiring, at a time when everybody was panicking, because we didn't know what COVID really meant to us here in Canberra at that stage back in March last year.

- So he's an amazing, man. Paul Murcott is his name, isn't it? And his daughter was Shona Mai. So people can Google that as well, or is he on social media that people can support his cause, or is there a way?

- Yeah, absolutely. So you can Google Trek for Shona Mai 2. He had an original website and Facebook page for Trek for Shona Mai, but it got hacked while he was on his Trek, and people stole money from him. And so he had to start a second web page. So Trek for Shona Mai 2. And you can learn a little bit about Paul, but interestingly, every little town they went through all the way through, you can see the little news articles as everybody was fascinated by his trek. And so you'll see a few of the news articles, and where he's appeared on the way. So definitely worth looking up. He's now down towards the coast, I think he's got family down that way. But he's hoping to get up from Nowra to visit the exhibition.

- And hopefully that can still happen, with the exhibition being extended to January. We'd love to see him here and get his photo and even bring you in. But I thought one of the lovely things to come out of it, you were one of the lucky finalists that actually got to visit the gallery and I got to meet you in person, and we had a panel that day. And one of the panel speakers was Christine Morgan from the Mental Health Commission. And we're quite focused this year on photography and art being a means of therapy or outreach for people as well or connection. So you actually made a connection with Christine after the exhibition, and then some amazing things unfolded from that.

- Absolutely. Sometimes photos make an impact. When I first met Paul, I took those photos and I sent them to the Canberra Times pretty much that same day, with just the story about Paul Murcott, Canberra. But again, that was the time of COVID, and so they didn't take up the story. No one went to try and find him and interview him in those last days when he arrived. And so it fell flat, but I felt there was more to that story that needed to be heard and we wanted to share. And so meeting Christine Morgan at your panel discussions on that day the exhibit happened was unexpected, but it was such a rewarding moment to find somebody who was not only interested, but high up and influential in the mental health game who wanted to learn more about Paul. And that all of a sudden gave some real meaning to the photo. It was not just a shot of a dog with a guy in the background, it was suddenly a story that was going to be heard a little bit more. And then from there also it appeared in the ABC Canberra Instagram pages, and got a little bit of social media interest around here in Canberra, which is wonderful.

- And Christine, she also organised for her team at the Mental Health Commission to do a virtual tour of the exhibition as well, which was really lovely for them to engage. And she was going to organise the handing over of the signatures, is that right?

- From what I knew, she said they wanted to touch base, so we arranged for Paul's details be given to her. I gave Paul a heads-up, so he was keen to discuss with the team. I think Christine was just looking for ways to see what she could do for Paul, whether that meant spreading a little bit more of his story, talking to people in government, or just understanding it to see whether the government had already taken care of some of the key things that he wanted to address through his petition. So where Christine took that with Paul, I've got no idea, but I'm sure their team would have engaged pretty closely with him.

- And I guess once again, we've been a little derailed by COVID.

- Absolutely.

- I know you've been photographing for a long time, but it seems like you're starting to hit your straps now with being in this prize, and I think you're working with the War Memorial as well. So what do you think that being part of NPPP and Living Memory will mean for your photographic career?

- So I've been lucky I've had the Napier Waller Art Prize at the War Memorial, I submitted something to that last year, and I've got a picture hanging there at the moment. And their prize got extended as well, while they're waiting for COVID. And I recently had another picture sent up to the Tweed Regional Gallery, and it went in the Olive Cotton Prize. So that was great to see a couple of other pictures. And it's really just been a bit of a flurry lately, but when I talk to people about where I've been lucky enough to have some pictures home, everybody is blown away when you say that, "I've got a picture hanging in the National Portrait Gallery." That above anything else seems to resonate with people, they all understand the significance, and so I think part of this prize. So really, really my new creative second half of my life, it's mind-blowing, like I said earlier on. I just can't believe it. So if I never get any more with this, I could still say that I'm in PPP finals.

- I've seen it.

- It's exciting, so I'm still buzzing about it. And it's been a while now, so that's good.

- It was lovely to meet you and see your enthusiasm. And it's one of my favourite parts, is getting to meet the people and then seeing them see your work hung in this gallery space. I mean, you tear up.

- But it's funny. There was a few finalists in the panel discussion on that day, and you could tell who they were. Because when we broke away from the panel discussion, and we went in the gallery, there were all those people taking selfies in front of the pictures hanging on the wall, and it meant so much to all of us. So it was kind of cool.

- And we missed out on the party so far this year, but hopefully we can have one in January because it's such a great source of inspiration and chatting to other photographers and networking as well. So fingers crossed, we get that to happen in January. But I guess one thing I was interested in, and I know you're a multiple disciplinary artist as well, but how has lockdowns and all the changes that are going on in the world at the moment affected your practise and the way you approach photography?

- I guess I've had to make do with less, if that makes sense. So I do a regular photo challenge on a weekly basis with an online group. And normally you'd have the flexibility to go out and photograph or do something in the community or further abroad to answer the briefs on those weekly challenges. All of a sudden lockdown means you really can't go out for those non-essential reasons. And so you're inventing things in your own garage or in your own studio, and you're having to come up with ideas of making great, well, hopefully creative photos in the same space you're living in day in, day out. And so finding little details and creativity in what you think is mundane and boring around you, has actually been really good, supercharged my creativity, I think. By being locked down, you don't have the flexibility to just wander around and then find the photo you want, you have to create it. So I think it's been pretty good for me.

- I think as well, I had a peek at your social media, but some of your focus seems to be on creating photos that bring joy to people in the lockdown.

- They always say you should shoot with purpose, and so sometimes it's something that's quite meaningful for the journalistic type photos, but other times it's just about making somebody laugh. And often I have to laugh at myself in order to make other people laugh. what you don't see on my social media are some of those really rapid shots. When I grew my first beard after retirement, because I couldn't grow beard in the army, I painted myself blue, my beard white, and I made the best Papa Smurf photo,

- but it doesn't play around that much. So there's a few of other shots like that that don't really capture the social media side. But it's all about, I think engaging with people, some people want a good laugh sometimes.

- I think it's really great. I guess it's interesting as well, I know you retired from the army and you're focusing on an arts career as a second career, and you seem to be building a network of veteran artists. I was wondering a little bit about that. That seems to be a bit of a passion of yours as well, that shared expression. Because a lot of veterans seem to turn to arts and photography.

- Absolutely, I think I was one of those army guys who thought that art didn't have a place in the military. There is a really good arts community in the military of ours. I know that's not the persona I wanted to be. And then when I got out, and in particular through the War Memorial and their connections with some of our photo artists, I realised that there was so many artists floating around army still serving that were expressing themselves, didn't feel stifled. And so I think I'd put those barriers on myself through my own biases within the army. And now I've realised, in particular, here in Canberra, massive veterans, our community, some beautiful paintings coming out of some of our veterans, some of them still serving, some are now out, some of them have amazing stories to tell, in particular with relation to mental health issues. So it's great I guess now having a network, people I've never even met before, but realised we had so many commonalities. And you can see it, share the army story, that everybody's been through that army experience, so that's not as interesting as now sharing and having survived as artists in this time. So it's been interesting. And I'm one of the very lucky ones, and I'm not uncommon, but I got through army with no big injuries, no mental health issues, so I'm very lucky. But then you gave some of these artists who use their art to express themselves as part of their therapy, and as part of their release.

- Yeah, I know.

- Absolutely. And it's great to engage with them because they're doing their art for different reasons the way I did my art.

- Perfect. So one thing we do get asked a bit on social media, obviously with photographers, is equipment and technicalities. So did you want to tell us about your selected equipment, and the style of photography you prefer?

- Oh, I'd love a Canon sponsorship, if that's what you're after, Tara.

- We know some people. I've got old SLRs, I've still got my original SLR camera, the old film camera, with the original Canon lenses. And so I stayed in the whole Canon world. So I've got a couple of Canon DSLRs that I use. They were predominantly sports cameras, so high frame rates, but not great for the creative stuff. And so I don't have great gear, and I've got a little bit of lighting, no great studio, a little bit of garage work, really, with some good black screens and green screens. So I don't have a lot of good kit, by photographer standards, but you make do. And it's surprising what you can do with old camera gear and a little bit of creativity, and a decent light source, although my light source is not great today.

- Not up to Hector's standards.

- So Canon gear, but older Canon gear. And I guess a photographer's eye is probably my best bit of kit.

- And what do you think is your style, your preferred style is portraiture or?

- So I've always said I'm not a portrait photographer. And then all of a sudden, in a period of 12 months, I've got three portraits hanging up in different places.

- And I still don't think I'm a portrait photographer, and I've often said I'm not a people person, I preferred animals. So I gravitated towards pet photography and race cars, or things that you didn't have to engage the humans so much in. But surprisingly, I'm becoming more of a portrait photographer. Although I don't consider myself a portrait photographer, if that makes sense.

- I thought there was the whole, I'll never work with children and animals. You're the opposite. You're like, work with the animals, not the peeps.

- Well, definitely. And you'll see no children on my social media at all, because I'm that way.

- But I do enjoy being around animals. And even when I took that photo of Paul Murcott, I found that by engaging through his animal, through RJ, his beautiful dog, it was easier for me to engage with him. So as a photographer, I am guilty of hiding behind my camera sometimes. And then as a pet lover, I'll use animals to engage with another person. And so I guess I'm a little bit introverted like that, but it's my safe zone being around animals. And so recently I was involved in Pets in The Park. It's a great charity here in Canberra and a few other capital cities where vets take care of the animals or homeless people. And so I would go to Pets in The Park and take photos of the pets, but then bring hard copies of the pet photos to the homeless people when they come back from the monthly clinics. But engaging with that person through their animal and then talking to them was the best way I found to get through my issue around people.

- And probably for the person you're photographing as well. A lot of people, if my dog doesn't like you, there's that animal instinct.

- Absolutely.

- I'm touched I haven't found an animal that doesn't like me yet.

- So any secret tips or hints you could give to people that are aspiring photographers out there that want to one day hang in PPP, or make photography their career?

- One of the things I'm learning more and more lately is to park your ego. I've taken some nice photos lately that I've thought were worth more than what the judges thought they were worth. And then getting my head around that and seeing what did make the judges' eye, and why did that make the judges' eye is something that I've had to come to grips with and say, well, just because I like the photo doesn't mean it's good art. Art is so subjective. And so it's not a black and white, it's not binary. It doesn't matter if it's in focus or not if it doesn't tell the story that the judges are looking for. And so learning now that, okay, I've had a few setbacks with what I thought were good photos, but that shouldn't stop me from continuing to do photos, and continue to submit them and put myself out there. It's putting yourself out there, parking the ego, I think is a really important part to growing as a photographer. So my advice is park the ego, get out there, take photos, share the photos, they deserve to be shared, I think, and see what comes with it.

- Awesome. Good advice. So is there any photographers or artists that inspire you or that you look up to?

- There is a veteran artist, he's a painter who I had met through the Napier Waller Award, a fellow by the name of Mike Armstrong. So he's a current serving chap, quite open about his struggle with PTSD, but he's a brilliant painter. And he was an artist before he joined the army, and he's carried it up all the way through. So listening and learning from Mike Armstrong has helped me get over some of my own biases about what's art and what's not art, and why do people put brush to canvas sometimes? When even though you might think that looks like shit. it wasn't about what I perceive of that image, it's what that person felt about putting that image down. And so parking my ego and seeing them has been something that Mike Armstrong has helped mentor me through. So you look up Mike Armstrong, he's on social media.

- Shout out to Mike. Big shout out to Mike, he's a brilliant artist, painter, photographer, and sculptor.

- Wow.

- He does all the disciplines, and he's so good at it.

- Well, you do water colour as well, right?

- I do. I've been guilty a little bit more recently of doing lots of pet watercolours. I'm sticking to the dog theme sometimes, but I'm just trying to learn different mediums to exercise different parts of the brain, and see light differently. I did some art classes with a lady by the name of Valentyna Crane, she's a Canberra lady, but from a Russian background. She's a brilliant Canberra artist, paints beautiful scenaries of Canberra. And she was running art classes at the Humble House Gallery out of Fyshwick, and she taught me to look at light in a different way. So photographers look at light and sketches, like her would look at shadows. She's all about adding shadow to an image to create the depth, whereas I was always about adding extra lights, you sought some dark and add light to it. And so seeing something in totally reverse to the way I do things as photographer has helped me look more for shadow rather than light.

- Interesting.

- And so I think that's going to hopefully pay up.

- A few years ago here at the Portrait Gallery, we did have a show called Popular Pets. That was all portraits of pets. So you can go online and have a look at it on our website, it's pretty cool.

- All right, absolutely.

- The whole pets as people.

- Well, some of my pet shots, they're known as underbellies where I take a photo of a dog or a cat from underneath a sheet of glass. And so it's totally a belly oriented look with a dog looking down from the glass. It's quite unusual. So underbelly photos, some people love it, and some people think it's a little bit weird.

- All right. Can you remember the first photo you ever took?

- I can, actually. So I bought a camera before Expo in 1988, when they had it at South Bank in Brisbane. before your time, though, Tara.

- Are you surprised?

- It was one of those school trips. I was in school, but the school trip from where I grew up in the Coffs Harbour area, did a couple of day trip up to Expo 88, and I bought a camera, and it was my first time ever photographing. It was all those foreign pavilions, and the Japanese pavilions, and just the scenery along South Bank when it was a fresh brand new expo site. So my first ever photos were really of that when I was still in school.

- That's awesome.

- The little Kodak 35 mil camera.

- And what about dream subjects? If you could photograph anyone in the world past, present, future, who do you think you'd want to get in front of your camera?

- I follow Peter Souza, who is the White House photographer. And in particular, he took some amazing photos of Barack Obama during his White House years. And I've always wanted to spend time with somebody who is a world leader or something like that, and just follow their daily routine, and take those candid snaps of things that were going on in there, what would have been their daily routine, but would have been world changing events. And people easily recognise that person and think, "Okay, well, that's an amazing shot." So somebody like a president, or a prime minister, or somebody who is so well known that you spend the day shooting all of those candid moments behind the scenes, not just the handshakes in front of the podium, that's the sort of thing I think I'd love to do.

- That sounds awesome. Do you have any shout outs or thank yous? Obviously to Paul.

- Absolutely. So Paul's been a champion. When I spoke to Paul and said, "Can I use your image?" And I had to do it all virtually to get consent. He was really supportive because it was about getting Shona Mai's story out as well. But really, I'd like to have a huge shout out to Tara, you, and the other team members. From the moment we contributed images and the feedback and the engagement we've had from everybody at Portrait Gallery, there's been such a positive experience. I just can't get over how professional, but how engaging everybody is. You can just tell everybody just loves their job, so big shout out to all of you.

- Thanks so much. I think that's it. We all really care about our enterprise as well, so I know with the other guys as well, it's one of our favourite parts, getting to meet the people, because you're building something together.

- And you would have seen people come through different exhibits a number of times. There's a lot of artists out there who are repeat offenders, they'll keep on popping up. And so I'm hoping I become a repeat offender, Tara, and you get to see me again.

- Yeah, maybe then you can show me this Papa Smurf photo.

- Careful what you wish for, Tara.

- All right. So we're nearly finished. What about your parting words of wisdom? To finish up, any words of wisdom from you?

- Life is short, so don't stress the little things, get out and enjoy it. One of the things I've always done is try to make the most of every day. And it's not always easy to do, but every day could be your last. I know that sounds terrible, but if you're living as if it could be your last, you'll enjoy life so much more. It's about that positive outlook. I know I'm a positive person. It's not just me thinking I am, I am a positive person and I'm fortunate enough to see the positivity in other things and enjoy it as much as I can. So live everyday like it's your last, I think.