Ben Apfelbaum

AUSTRALIAN PREMIERE OF THE QUEEN OF IRELAND @ SYDNEY FILM FESTIVAL

Rory O’Neill and friends.
Conor Horgan, Rory O'Neill and guest at the screening.
Conor Horgan, Rory O’Neill and guest at the screening.Images by Ben Apfelbaum.

Filmmaker Conor Horgan and Rory O’Neill aka Panti Bliss were Festival guests at the premiere.

Horgan’s film is an uplifting documentary about Ireland’s superstar drag queen Panti Bliss who rose from being a ‘giant cartoon woman’ to being one of the highest profile activists in the LBGTIQ community.

THE QUEEN OF IRELAND took five years to make, during which time Horgan’s camera followed Rory around on his journey of self discovery. The film also captures an interesting time in Irish history with the referendum on marriage equality taking place in 2015 with the Irish voting in favour of same sex marriage.

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.