For 17-year-old photographer Chloe Brookes, the camera means more than taking pictures it’s a vehicle for understanding her world.Chloe won an Outstanding Teen Award for visual arts from youth charity Teen Services last month for her efforts.The charity presents awards to senior school students each year, categories range from spiritual leadership to community service.Chloe, a Bermuda High School for Girls (BHS) student, was nominated for the award by the school.“[BHS] nominated me for my artwork but I was also put forward for perseverance. I always was kind of a slow learner, and because I had attention deficit disorder I had to grasp skills like reading a little differently from everyone else. It took me a while to find my own way to study and learn. Art became an outlet for that. I use it to blend ideas. It’s a lens through which I learn.”After getting her first camera at the age of 12, Chloe learned the tricks of the trade gradually.“I was always kind of technically challenged, so I took up photography as a way to push myself. Over time it was something I found I really, really liked.”A friend convinced her to join Youth Camera Action two years ago.The Bermuda National Gallery (BNG) started the club for middle school students in 2009. It brings BNG staff and photography enthusiasts together, and teaches students how to choose and set up shots with digital cameras. They also learn how to use software for uploading pictures onto the Internet.The project has grown into a Saturday club for students, as well as a summer camp.What she learned there piqued Chloe’s interest enough that she travelled to Oxford University last summer for a photography course at the UK institution’s Pembroke College.The four-week programme included a lecture from a General who had fought in the Middle East an area of special interest to the teenager.“I don’t have a set area of interest as far as photography goes, but I’m definitely very interested in what’s going on in the Middle East,” she explained. “It’s a place at the forefront of world affairs. I find it fascinating everything from how Middle Eastern countries are dealing with nuclear technology, to cyber defence and concepts of jihad.”Some of her pictures were featured in the Young Observer section of The Royal Gazette; Chloe then spent her mid-term break last autumn working at the paper.“A lot happened during that time,” she said. “We had the elections coming up, it was Premier Ewart Brown’s last week in office, there were shooting incidents. It was turbulent but great. I got to see a different side of the business, and I saw a lot of Bermuda that I hadn’t seen before.”Now an International Baccalaureate student at BHS, she says she hasn’t yet pinned her future on photo-journalism. Beyond graduating in May, her sights are set on going to Israel.Her involvement with Cornerstone Bible Fellowship introduced her to the work of US theologian Randall Price president of World of the Bible Ministries.“He’s currently involved in archaeological digs in Turkey and Israel,” Chloe said. “Dr Price has done a lot of digs in the part of Israel where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found. So I’m really hoping to be able to go out there and do some work with his team out there.“I’m taking a gap year after graduating, and I want to go to Israel and hopefully study archaeology. But either way, I also want to spend a lot of that time developing my photojournalism skills.”l Useful web links: www.bermudanationalgallery.com, www.worldofthebible.com