ENTERTAINMENT I GOING PLACES I WEEK OF APRIL 14-20 JEWISH EVENTS READERS THEATER Maple/Drake Jewish Community Center, Sunday, admission. 967-4030. VIVACE MUSIC SERIES Birmingham Temple, 28611 W. 12 Mile, Farmington Hills, New World String Quartet, Sunday, admission. 647-4632 or 288-3953. JIMMY PRENTIS MORRIS JEWISH COMMUNITY CENTER 15110 W. 10 Mile, Oak Park, Wisla Song and Dance Ensemble, "Entertainment from Poland," Sunday, admission. SPECIAL EVENTS Caren Nederlander calls her works impressionist photographs. Pilot Artist Caren Nederlander relies on her Painter's sensibilities' for her photography. VICTORIA BELYEU DIAZ Special to The Jewish News I f you're looking for photographer Caren Nederlander's studio, you might try the Berk- shire Hills in Massachusetts, an azalea trail in the deep South, the streets of San Francisco, a wooded spot in northern Maine, the banks of the Potomac, a country lane in Michigan. Wherever there's color and lots of it in the great outdoors, you'll find this fifth- generation Detroiter, with her trusty Nikon FE, and pockets full of Kodacolor film. You won't catch her setting anything up on a tripod, though, or asking any of her subjects to "hold it." Expect, instead, to find her snapping up local color literally as she moves — hiking through the countryside, or travelling from place to place via car, train, or, if the situation calls for it, horseback. The shimmering, light- dappled photos that result from her unusual modus operandi, filled as they are with softly-blurred and clear colors, resemble impressionist paintings. In fact, she calls her work "impressionist photographs," referring to the style she's come to only recently. The field of photography itself is relatively new to Nederlander. A former painter who studied at the University of Michigan, her knowledge of photography was virtually nil, she main- tains, until three years ago, when her 23-year marriage to theater mogul Robert Nederlander ended. "lb think I was in Africa once, and never took a single picture!' says the diminutive Nederlander, who lives in Bloomfield Hills in a vast Georgian colonial home she designed and decorated herself. "We used to travel all over the world, but my hus- band always took the pic- tures. I never really had anything to do with it." Her sons were already away at college when the marriage ended, she says. "So, I decid- ed to travel, and to just enjoy taking pictures for a change!' Soon, Nederlander dis- covered she had a real love for the art of photography and, during one of her frequent visits to New York, decided to enroll at the International Center of Photography near her Manhattan apartment. "I was doing pretty much what everybody else was try- ing to do, though — photojour- nalism. You know, take a pic- ture of what you see!" She happened on her district impressionistic style almost by accident, she says, during one October picture- taking weekend in Aspen, Cola "Later, looking through all the pictures I'd taken, I threw out one that was blurred — I'd shot it from a moving car," says Nederlander. "Then, some time later, I happened to glance down into the wastebasket, and see it there, and I thought it was think a picture should be beautiful, something that makes you feel good when you look at it. gorgeous! From that time, I've always tried to reproduce the technique!' Now, Nederlander has put together 16 of her impres- sionist photographs in a book entitled Changing Views, and is looking forward to the first showing of her work, a benefit for the Cranbrook Academy of UNIVERSITY PRODUCTIONS Frieze Bldg., State and Washington, Ann Arbor, "$5 Revue," an evening of songs and skits to benefit a scholarship fund for U-M musical theatre students, today and Saturday, admission. 764-0450. COMEDY COMEDY CASTLE 593 Woodward, Berkley, Bobby Slayton, today and Saturday; Billy Elmer, Tuesday through April 22, admission. 542-9900. THEATER MEADOW BROOK THEATRE Oakland University, Rochester, Quilters, now through April 23, admission. 377-3300. PERFORMANCE NETWORK 408 W. Washington, Ann Arbor, India Song, now through April 30, admission. 663-0681. BIRMINGHAM THEATRE 211 S. Woodward, Birmingham, Broadway Bound, now through Continued on Page 95 THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS 79