Ben Apfelbaum

WALKING ON BONDI BEACH, THE LAST 10 YEARS @ BONDI PAVILION GALLEY

David Itzkowic has had an interest in photography since his teenage years when his parents allowed him to set up a darkroom in their garage. In his early years at University he spent many lunch times talking to the photographer who illustrated David’s lectures picking up tips along the way.

David then suspended his photographic interests for many years due to demanding medical studies and there after an extremely busy career as a gynaecologist.

When many people retire after a long and successful career they do not know what to do with themselves. David was able to return to his first creative love- photography.

In his commentary  David talks about his lifelong love of Bondi Beach. “My parents, immigrants from Europe, arrived in 1948. I was 2 years old. They used to meet their friends, mostly other european immigrants, at Bondi Beach at the weekends. I spent many childhood weekends on Bondi Beach.”

In the last years David has walked Bondi to Bronte with a group of friends at 6am most mornings of the week. He takes his camera, a Canon 5D1V, and takes candid photos of the beach people, surfers, board riders, at one of the two golden hours for photography, late afternoon or in his case the early morning.

He told me, “I like photographing things that other people don’t see.” Even though it is a cliche he can’t resist the surf and surf boarders especially when the surf is up. He loves the variety of people including the gymnasts, the runners, the people making footprints in untouched sand, the swimmers at the Bondi baths – they are all like family to him.

David also stated that his greatest challenges in preparing this exhibition were  in choosing the photos, discussing with his printer the intricacies of the colour balance in his images, and the curating of the exhibition so that there was a cohesive narrative.

The results of this odyssey from 1948, to photographing whilst walking with his friends, to the trials and tribulations of digital photography, has resulted in a beautiful exhibition.

All the prints are for sale and some of the images can even be reproduced on metal!

WALKING ON BONDI, THE LAST 10 YEARS is on display at the Bondi Pavilion Gallery between 16 October and 28 October and the opening hours are 10am to 5pm.

If you have the time you could easily combine this exhibition with a visit to Sculpture by the Sea when the dates overlap.

featured image – David Itzkowic in front of his photo ‘Stretch’. 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.