Ben Apfelbaum

HEAD ON : PHOTOGRAPHY FESTIVAL

Moshe Rosenzveig, the Head On founder and director started this exhibition ten years ago which occupied a small gallery with Australian made portraits  It has exploded in size to be one of the major photographic exhibitions in the world.

Over the decade the Festival has awarded more than $600,000 in cash and products. Over the years it has been displayed in over 320 galleries, the streets of Sydney, parks and churches.
This year thousands of entries were received from all over the world which took the judges two  weeks to adjudicate. There were several categories comprising portrait, landscape and student. The portrait prize winner was Juliet Taylor for her moody photo Unlucky set in the San Bernardino High Desert of America.

The winner of the Landscape Prize was Bruce Haswell for his photo Blackpool, UK 2016

A special New South Wales Prize went to Chris Round for his photo of The Big Trout, Adaminaby, NSWThe Mobile Phone Prize when to Mel Meek for his photo Fruit crush.The Student Prize went to  Aimee Sluga for a photo of her grandmother entitled The Last Goodbye.

Voting forms were handed out during the Festival to see what was regarded by the public as the most popular image. This hasn’t been announced yet.

In addition there were screenings, slideshows, seminars and featured exhibitions highlighting the works of invited photographers.

I suppose being Sydney centric I do find it impossible to get to far flung galleries on the fringes of Sydney. I do understand that these areas should not be deprived of quality photo exhibitions. I was fortunate that this year the bulk of displayed photos were centred around the Paddington hub comprising the Paddington Town Hall, the Paddington Reservoir courtyard and Juniper Hall currently housing the Moran Contemporary Photography Prize winners and finalists.

Given the vast amount of effort put into this exhibition by amassing and displaying this vast amount of photographic art, I do not understand why it runs for a ‘criminally’ short period of 15 days. In my opinion the Festival should be held over a month so that various venues can be ‘sipped’ individually rather than a great big gulp I experienced at the Paddington Hub. Furthermore, if one works and has only the weekends free to see this Festival it makes viewing time almost impossibly minute.  All I can say is I love the Festival but more time please!

featured photo- Lulu Pinkus ‘Cloud Surfing’ 2nd Prize mobile phone category. Pics by Ben Apfelbaum. Original photos attributed.

 

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.