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Show Park Record Thursday, March 19, 1987 Page B1 Who was here: The Doctor makes a house call in Utah by Jacquee Gillespie Record contributing writer As I stepped from the TARDIS at the Sheraton Hotel, which takes you instantly from the first floor to the second, my companion and I... Oh, sorry. I don't want to start like that. I'll try again: BBC's 900-year-old Time Lord was on hand Friday the 13th to greet hundreds hun-dreds of fans at the... No, that's not right either. How about this: Back in 1962, the heads of the BBC came up with the idea of a children's educational science fiction program. The lead character was to be a time traveler from the 49th century... No, no, no! Actually I don't know how to start this. After all, if you don't already know about Doctor Who he is, as he himself has said, rather difficult to explain. But since I'm writing this story I suppose I'll have to give it a try. The Doctor is a time traveler from the planet Gallifrey, an irrepressible do-gooder and busy-body. As a Time Lord, the Doctor lives for an enormously enor-mously long time and has 12 regenerations. He travels around in a TARDIS Time And Relative Dimensions In Space, a space-time ship which looks like a British police call box and is much bigger on the inside that it is on the outside. Unfortunately the TARDIS doesn't really work properly, pro-perly, and, more often than not, one might even say "always", lands the Doctor in the midst of some completely com-pletely unexpected adventure. That is, if it's working at all. Well, that wasn't too bad so I guess I'll go on. Friday, March 13, was a big day for all of the Doctor's fans. Not only was there a "Doctor Who Convention" Conven-tion" but the Doctor himself, in his sixth regeneration, made his first f fV ', vf ill,' :,X- ; v- ' . - -,vf The dastardly Sea Devil who spilled the beans. "The Great White Hunter" now bv JOHN KINCH Record Contributing Writer Eberhard Brunner tries to focus on the eyes of his photographic subjects. There, he feels, the emotion is. "I feel like with people, the eyes give expression and feeling to the pnoto," Brunner said. "Most of my photos are close enough to see the eyes." The eyes of a grizzly bear, moose, caribou and other Alaskan animals are what Brunner Brun-ner tries to capture in his pictures pic-tures subjects not for the photographer faint of heart. It takes patience, skill, outdoor savvy sav-vy and more patience. "I stay around the animal for a long time. Once I spent a couple days following some Dall Sheep, until they got used to me. Then I got the shot I wanted," Brunner said. On March 27 Brunner will have a one-evening show with ac-complished ac-complished wildlife photographer Tom Mangelsen at Images of Nature. The skills of a wildlife photographer, such as Brunner, are not unlike that of a hunter. In fact, Eberhard Brunner's other profession is that of a big game hunting guide. He is known as "The Great White Hunter" because of his silver hair. Brunner has operated as a guide for 22 years in the Alaskan wilderness during the summers. He's spent the last two winters in Park City. "I'm not anti-hunting," he said. "But I've turned out to be a non-hunter." non-hunter." Brunner said he rarely carries a gun on guide trips, letting the clients do the hunting. When he photographs wildlife he does not "I was excited about my first- ever Who Doctor is, until I found out it was eight hours long." live appearance in Salt Lake City. I was excited about my first-ever Doctor Who Convention excited, that is, until I found out it was eight hours long. "Holy moley!", I thought. "What on earth can they possibly do for eight hours?" But I already had a ticket, so stuffing stuff-ing my camera bag full of chocolate bars and cherry nibs, I set off to find out. Hundreds of fans of all descriptions descrip-tions showed up to celebrate the occasion oc-casion and to show off their Doctor Who costumes. The show, which is now in it's 24th year (making it the longest running science fiction show on the planet), has a cult following of millions of people all over the world. It is traditional for the fans to come dressed as their favorite r x-tf By far the most comnm.. . oslume was that of the fourth Doctor, Tom Baker. Baker played the role for seven years, longer than anyone else to date. He was also the first Doctor to be seen on American television and this, in part, explains his popularity. Tom Baker wore a 17-foot long scarf, a floppy wide-brimmed hat carry a weapon, only lots of camera equipment. Brunner became interested in photography by taking pictures of clients with their game they bagged. From there his involvement involve-ment with photography grew. Brunner's photographic technique techni-que is to use telephoto lenses in low light situations early morning morn-ing and evening with slow shutter shut-ter speeds. "I shoot at slow shutter speeds because I want to capture the feeling of moving," he said. Brunner will routinely shoot at l30thof a second. One of Brunner's favorite photographs is of a cowboy roping rop-ing a horse where the action is streaked because it is so fast. As well as nature photography, Brunner is also an accomplished sports photographer. For most of this January and February he photographed the men's World Cup in Europe for Ski Racing Magazine. The majority of Brunner's nature shots are from his summers sum-mers in Alaska. A photo last year of an Arctic tern, a gull-like bird, won him the prestigious Kodak International Newspaper Snapshot Awards last year. The animals in Brunner's photographs are often startingly close; he believes in filling the frame with the subjects. Sometimes getting so close to big game animals can be risky, however, Brunner maintains that it is the amateur who gets himself in trouble, not the professional. Once Brunner was photographing a bull moose that was bedded down in a meadow. A bull moose, as Brunner will attest, at-test, during the rut has been Who's Who from left to right: Heather Kenyon as the second Doctor Patrick Troughton, John Kenyon as the third Doctor Jon Pertwee, Leatha Betts as the fourth Doctor Tom Baker and Chris Watts as the sixth Doctor 0! i Baker all ready to wrap up another adventure. and an Edwardian coat. This is not exactly an easy costume to come up with. I know, because I tried. Nevertheless, Never-theless, about half a dozen ingenious fans managed it. Most of these fans bore a striking resemblance to Baker, and their costumes were accurate ac-curate down to the smallest detail. Many others had the long, multicolored multi-colored scarf. The convention in Salt Lake boasted not only several "Tom Bakers" but a "Peter Davison" (fifth regeneration) and a "Colin Baker" (sixth regeneration). They were, of course, in perfect costume, including such details as Davison's customary sprig of celery and Colin Baker's rather appalling shoes. Naturally, Yours Truly stuck out like a Dalek in a drainpipe. (Daleks are one of the Doctor's most insidious in-sidious enemies and look rather like R2-D2.) People without 17-foot-long scarves or appalling shoes, like myself, were a bit rare. But Doctor Who fans are unfailingly polite, and I received several kindly compliments com-pliments on my rather plain sweatshirt. sweat-shirt. described as the most dangerous and unpredictable animal in North America. A man nearby (not Brunner) spooked the animal and instead of charging the man, the moose came at Brunner. "I got a series of six or seven frames you know, with the automatic winder of him coming. com-ing. Leaves were flying and he was a little out of focus," said Brunner, smiling with the understatement. Brunner darted behind a tree and left the camera to the will of the moose. He thundered past like a freight train, missing the camera and Brunner. V x'" If Eberhard Brunner photographs the animals of Alaska during dur-ing the summer "Naturally, Yours Truly stuck out like a Dalek in a drainpipe." The evening began at 5 p.m. with everyone milling around the Sheraton Hotel Grand Ballroom. Old friends were greeted, costumes were admired and new friends were made. I walked about, blinding everyone I could see with my flash. Displayed on one table were the rubber masks of some of the Doctor's Doc-tor's most fearsome enemies. I blinded these too, just to be on the safe side. The back of the room was filled with Doctor Who merchandise books, records, posters, mugs and t-shirts. There was even a build-it-yourself TARDIS kit. But sadly, the inside was smaller than the outside, which was already pretty small. stalks game with camera Being able to show his work alongside that of Mangelsen's is exciting for Brunner. "My interest in outdoor photography was rekindled after seeing Tom's stuff. I think Tom does an excellent job. I dream of one day being able to shoot with him." The show will begin at 5 p.m. and is open to the public at Images Im-ages of Nature on Main Street. In April Brunner will return to his Grizzly Hill Lodge, which is 200 miles west of Anchorage. The lodge can only be reached by air. That's no problem for Brunner, however, who is also an ace bush pilot. v. i . s V H3 iT,.-; " One of the Tom Baker-look-alikes, Leatha Betts, told me with shining eyes of her meeting with the real Tom Baker. I listened enviously and dearly wished I had a scarf just like hers. Then we all sat down again to watch the first two episodes of the 1986 Doctor Who season a real treat. In America only the older episodes are aired, so no one in the audience had ever seen these adventures adven-tures before. They starred Colin Baker, the sixth Doctor. By this time it was 8:30. 1 had been there for three and a half hours without even noticing the time going by! It was then that I knew I had what it takes. I knew I could make it through the entire eight hours. This was very good, because the best part was next. Understand that I am saying this with hindsight. The next part was Colin Baker, the Doctor himself in person, with a question and answer session. Now, I had never seen Colin Baker before, but I had seen one photograph of him. (This is an ex J it .?, ' ' y "v v. v . k ? Photographing Dall Sheep takes lots of patience, according accor-ding to Brunner who often will wait days to get the perfect shot. photos and illustration by Jacquee Gillespie if 4 f . cellent way to form an opinion of a person.) And . . . well, I'm afraid he looked like a jerk in this particular photograph. So I had come prepared to find that Colin Baker was a jerk. Admittedly, the videos I had just seen provided a clue that this idea was not correct. Luckily it turned out that not only was I not correct, 1 was dead wrong. Colin Baker was et.'erv-.. stout, entertaining, considerate, kind and warm. He answered questions, any questions, for nearly two hours, and he answered each question as though it were for the first time. Of course it wasn't the first time, or even the fittieth. Saying he felt "remoti'" on t lie stage, Baker stepped down and moved mov-ed among the audience. Oddly enough the Doctors seldom need body guards. The fans are extremely extreme-ly respectful and don't -.cream, grab or fling themselves on t e actors. One little girl asked Maker if he had any children. He replied that he had a two-year-old daughter, and Who to Hi , s :.;-. 1 : 5 "1 . A ' |