[1] She studied for a Diploma of Art and Design at Prahran College of Advanced Education 1973-76, where her lecturers were Athol Shmith, Paul Cox, and John Cato.
After graduation, Mitelman practiced as a freelance photographer specialising in portraiture for magazines including the trendsetting POL, and newspapers,[2] album and book covers, and for theatre and music posters.
[4] One hundred and twenty appear in her 1988 book Faces of Australia was work previously exhibited at The Art Gallery, Prahran,[5] to a lukewarm review from Age reviewer Greg Neville who while conceding that they were "professional and respectable," considered them "commercial portraiture in the sixties style, all grain and contrast, dressed up with just the right dose of Bicentenary sentiment," work that "tells us no more about the famed sitters than we already know, and nothing about the artist.
"[8] The National Portrait Gallery holds twenty of her photographs[9] including those of Dorothy Hewett, Helen Garner, Judith Wright, Jack Hibberd,[10] Peter Carey, Michael Leunig, Christina Stead,[11] Brett Whiteley, Germaine Greer, Ruby Hunter, Murray Bail,[12] Alan Marshall, Kylie Tennant, Susan Ryan, Ita Buttrose, Max Dupain[13] and Lily Brett.
[14] Her depiction of Miss Alesandra[15] won the Gallery’s National Photographic Portrait prize,[16][17] for which she received $25,000 provided by Visa International.