Ben Apfelbaum

TARONGA PARK CENTENARY PARADE

Last Saturday 15th October Taronga Park Zoo held a parade from Hyde Park down Macquarie Street to the Opera House forecourt. It consisted of ten vividly lit animal sculptures in bright vibrant colours each sculpture being followed by scores of dancing primary school children dressed as the animal that they were accompanying.

The bright colours of the ten animals were in contrast with the sad and sobering actual plight of these animals in the wild, as they were  in fact facing the threat of extinction.

These animals were the African elephant, the pangolin, the rhinoceros, the bilby, the corroboree frog, the leatherback turtle, the sun bear, the honey eater, the sumatran tiger, and the platypus.

At the Opera House huge crowds who had streamed down Macquarie street viewed the sculptures set out below the Opera House steps.

A brief song pertaining to the animals plight was performed and then the hundreds of kids and their parents flocked to marques set up in the escarpment over looking the Opera House in the Botanical Gardens for a private after party.

Images by ben Apfelbaum (c).

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 Treborland. 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.