Ben Apfelbaum

SWEET SUMMER SOUNDS : A FREE SYDNEY FESTIVAL HIGHLIGHT

BOI
BOI
Klue
Pirra
Pirra

In addition to the performances that charged admission fee, the Festival of Sydney had a smattering of free events throughout Sydney.

On the last Sunday of the Festival I caught up with one of those events called the Sweet Summer Sounds. This event was in fact held at First Fleet Park from Thursday to Sunday permitting a large number of up and coming artists and bands to perform before a live audience.

At the time that I attended I witnessed three groups; BOI- a heavy metal band, Klue – an Afro soul and funk duo, and Pirra. Pirra is a Luritja word meaning moon. This is because the lead vocalist Jess Beck is a Luritja  woman from Adelaide and she was backed up by twins Curtis and Jeffrey Argent playing a mixture of Indie frock overlaid with electro and synthesiser sounds.

As well as the bands feeling unleashed so did the audience with many dancing with joy and abandon. Adding to the heady atmosphere were the presence of barbell jugglers.

This was a wonderful way to end the Festival.

BOI
Klue
Klue
Pirra

Text and photos 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.