Ben Apfelbaum

STORM BOY OPENS UNDER A THREATENING SKY

The stars of STORM BOY  walked the Red Carpet under a threatening sky for its recent Open Air cinema premiere. In fact, the heavens opened half way through the screening. Some of the photographers facetiously hoped that a Sydney Harbour pelican would fly in and waddle along the red carpet as well , Naturally this was not to be.

The original film  came out in 1976 and was directed by Henry Safran. Author Colin Thiele wrote this back in 1964. This new adaptation is directed by Shawn Seet.

Despite his literary importance his death on the 4th September 2006 aged 85 was overshadowed by the enormous media coverage given to Steve Irwin’s death on the same day.

Jai Courtenay playing a caring father  was very happy to step out of action roles and play a more complex and normal character.

Eleven year old Finn Little was very self assured on the Carpet and remarked on the strong bond that was forged between Trevor Jamieson and himself. He further indicated that the pelicans could occasionally be very naughty and cooperative unless they received lots of fish.  Interestingly enough a pelican’s beak can hold twice as much fish in its beak than in its stomach.

The story centres on the bond between a lonely young boy and a pelican  and provides the perfect cinematic fare for all the family during the holiday and the start of the school and working year.

STORM BOY  is currently screening in 33 cinemas across Sydney now.

All pics 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.