Ben Apfelbaum

OUR STATE LIBRARY : OUR TREASURE THAT KEEPS GIVING

William Barton
Photography Gallery
The Sydney Youth Orchestra brass section
Ribbon Cutting – George Souris, John Graham, John Vallance
The new Photo Gallery
The new Photography Gallery
The new Photography Gallery
Photography Gallery

 

John Graham, Minister for the Arts and Roads
George Souris, John Graham, John Vallance
George Souris addresses the auditorium audience

The State Library Of New South Wales underwent a multi-million dollar renovation to make it fit for the 21st century.

Not only did it make the Library fully accessible it also added a state  of the art  350 seat auditorium as well as a much needed photographic gallery to highlight some of the 2,000,000 photographs which has in its archives.

In the yet unnamed auditorium former MLC member George Souris was a genial host for the evening.

Guest of Honour John Graham, the Minister fof the Arts was special guest and spoke of how important a State Library was as the bedrock of Australian culture, civilisation and knowledge.

It was announced that State Librarian Johh Vallance was retiring to be succeeded by Dr Caroline Butler Bowden.

Dr Valance arranged for a screening about the construction of the renovations which was highly sped up to demonstrate the complexity, difficulty and innovation to bring the project to fruition.

After a didgeridoo performance by William Barton and a rousing brass fanfare from a portion of the Sydney Youth Orchestra it was revealed that the auditorium was directly underneath the Library’s main reading room whose visitors were unable to  hear anything emanating from below. Furthermore, with the state of the art sound system and projector it was anticipated that this new venue would host some of the events of the annual Sydney Writer’s and Film’s festivals.

Afer a ribbon cutting ceremony all the guests were invited  to view an exhibition called ‘Shots’, comprising of 400 images shot by 200 photographers in the new photographic gallery;.

Of special historical  interest was a rare viewing of a portrait of Dr William Bland, a daguerrotype image created in 1845 and  Australia’s oldest photograph.

It is anticipated that the Gallery will rotate its exhibitions to highlight as many photos in its vast collection.

This  celebratory gala  event took place on the 23rd October, 2023.

Featured image : Retiring State Librarian John Vallance. Text and images by Ben Apfelbaum

Published by Ben Apfelbaum

My photography began when my father handed me the proverbial brownie box camera as a child. As cameras developed I went through Fujica and Olympus range finders graduating to my first single lens reflex camera, the Minolta SRT101, the latter being the greatest facilitator to my growth as a photographer. Digital photography has only added to this. I was a regular contributor to Camera Craft magazine (Australian Camera ) for over three years. During Australia’s Bicentennial year (1988) I made it a personal project to document the celebrations. This culminated in the creation of a book of my photos which was published in 1989. The book was called CELEBRATING AUSTRALIA and came with an accompanying calendar. My works have appeared in a number of publications including the coffee book entitled MY AUSTRALIA (1989), publisher Robertsbridge Severn. This book had a preface by the then Australian Prime Minister Bob Hawke. I was a co-photographer on a book entitled SYDNEY- DISCOVER THE CITY with text written by Robert Treborlang. Major Mitchell Press was the publisher. Also for two years I was the photographer for calendars celebrating Sydney’s multicultural communities. The two calendars were entitled MULTICULTURAL SYDNEY. My work appeared in a group exhibition held at Sydney’s Town Hall pertaining to the diversity of life in South America to raise money for orphanages there. I have over one hundred photos stored in the New South Wales State Library archive. I had a solo exhibition held in 2007 entitled Ben’s Lens at the Sydney Jewish Museum which celebrated the vibrancy of the Sydney Jewish community. Some of these photos are on the Museum’s permanent display. I have exhibited internationally firstly at the Spruill Gallery in Atlanta Georgia, United States, and in an exhibition entitled Kosher and Co at the Jewish Museum in Berlin. Currently I am a regular contributor to J-Wire and this esteemed publication. To celebrate the opening of a permanent Photography Gallery, the State Library of New South Wales selected 400 shots from its archive of over 2,000,000 images to display in the new gallery. An image of mine was plucked out of the multi million photo archive to be part of the inaugural exhibition.