Name: Anne Pappalardo, although if you know me via my husband you’ll call me Annie. The Pappalardo part really belongs to my husband, Alf, who is first generation Australian (his parents are from Sicily) and we have a daughter, Sophie and a son Thomas.
Pets: This is Chocolate Swirl. He is a Ragdoll cat, so named because the breed goes floppy like a ragdoll when you pick them up. He is like our third child and like Cathie Kato’s dog, Ruby, Chocs LOVES having four people home 24/7 (Sophie is his favourite).
Chocolate Swirl. Portrait by Anne Pappalardo and showing effective use of the QCG white background and portrait lights, in her Ashgrove rumpus room.
What gear do you shoot with: I have a Sony a6500 (crop sensor) and three lenses: a 50mm (portrait), a 100-400mm (birds), and a 10-18mm (wide angle - still making friends with it).
What is your favourite genre of photography: When my son was too old for his mum to be lurking around with a camera at his sporting fixtures I switched to bird photography, which I love. Max Biddlestone forwarded an article to Jane M and me about how COVID-19 has unintentionally turned us all into birders. It’s a brilliant story (thanks so much, Max) and talks about how many more people now have the opportunity to spend time looking out a window or being present in nature, which I thought was lovely.
Sunshine Coast: Little Corellas at dusk.
Favourite Restaurant: We love Indian and have just discovered 50 Spices which is near our home. Don’t bother eating in – just order takeaway (they also deliver). Inexpensive and delicious.
Favourite Song: Of course it’s Zoom by Fat Larry’s Band but anything with a disco ball, smoke machine and a turned-up satin lapel in the film clip goes alright with me. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DMo6Ju8SJ8o.
Best holiday you ever had: Last year we went to London as a family. The boys went to watch the Aussies at the World Cup Cricket. Soph and I went more as an afterthought, but I am so glad we went. The joke is that I’m not allowed to attend any fancy cricket games until I understand LBW. I’ve been watching Tom play cricket since he was in preschool and I still don’t understand LBW (he is now 19) so there was no chance Alf was going to fork out for a ticket for me to go to Lords. Didn’t stop Soph and I tagging along on the Tube out to St John’s Wood to soak up the atmosphere of Australia playing England with the return of Smith and Warner from the ball tampering scandal, Sandpapergate.
In between the cricket we did the sights and sounds of London. We each had a UK sim card which meant for the first time the ‘kids’ were able to go off and do their own thing. I’ll never forget travelling back from Lords with Soph on the Tube, and Soph turned to me and said ‘This is your stop, mummy,’ and I got off the train and watched her go off without me. Without me. Or when Tom messaged us ‘What’s for lunch?’ and we all navigated our way from separate points for a catch up at lunch, then headed off again for an afternoon doing different things. I found it quite surreal to watch our ‘children’ behave as adults in another country but it was this new level of independence that made the holiday that so much more special.
Australia didn’t make it through to the finals (New Zealand played England) but the game itself was history-making and while the boys headed back to Lords to watch it, I went to Trafalgar Square with what seemed like every Kiwi currently installed in London to see it on a big screen. Again – the atmosphere was electric and I had to pinch myself that I got to be there.
Trafalgar Square: Kiwis celebrate a boundary in the 2019 World Cup Final. They’d soon be crying. She’s a tough old game.
Favourite image by another QCG member: I very much admire Jane McMenamin’s bird photography and Jane’s “Commotion in the Nest” is one of my all-time favourite images. When it comes to human portraits I can’t go past Roger Bartlett’s “The Musician”. I absolutely love looking at members’ images and my enjoyment is enhanced because of our connection through QCG. Away from the camera club scene and because they know I love photography, people often try and show me their images on their phones and I feel like telling them I have a whole posse of people whose images are the ones I’d prefer to look at any day of the week. But you can’t say that out loud.
Commotion in the Nest by Jane McMenamin.
The Musician by Roger Bartlett.
Favourite image of your own: I love the puffin photos I took on the holiday I mentioned above. You cannot be in a bad mood while looking at these adorable birds.
Puffins on Skomer Island, Wales.
How has life changed for you during COVID-19. Well along with Photoshop and bird books on the desk there is now a copy of the Corporations Law as my husband works from home for probably another couple of months. Tom is doing uni from home and Soph’s job – miraculously – has continued albeit with fewer hours. I have missed my brother and my parents terribly but as I write this the restrictions on the number of people who can visit each other has been raised to 5, and guess how many my four plus my brother make? 5! So that’s made my Mother’s Day for this year and more importantly, my mum’s Mother’s Day.
Phoney photo by Soph. Chocs not really getting into it. Can you see my photo frame with (most) of you in it? Best present ever. And no, my desk is never this tidy.