Ben Apfelbaum

MARDI GRAS FAIR DAY

Fair Day returned to Victoria Park  in Broadway on Sunday 17th February and like last year it was bathed in glorious sunshine. Last year’s crowd was estimated by the organisers at 80,000 people and there were at least that many this year.

The Fair is free and open to all and there were many ‘traditional’ families as well as the families and friends of the LGBTQI community. By saying this I do not wish to imply that there was some sort of  division as the whole day exuded a unity of a love, warmth, generosity of spirit and above all fun.

If you wanted to cool off even Victoria Park’s swimming pool was open to all.

Many of the Fair’s favourites were there including dog costume parades and doggy tricks demonstrations in what was designated as Doggy Wood.

After the dogs had done their stuff in the Doggy Wood arena it was now the turn of humans as teams of men and women held several rounds of a tug of war. Their efforts were sometimes impeded by fits of laughter which effected the audience as well.

Away from the Doggy Wood Arena there was an area set up for ‘yak  milking’. This consisted of a barrel of beer dressed in a cow costume where upon contestants competed to see who could extract the most beer from a nipple attached  to the yak within a specified time. Yet gain the fumbling efforts of the contestants created much hilarity.

The main stage hosted the most colourfully dressed person as well as a sampling of acts appearing throughout the Festival including performers from interstate and overseas.

The day ended with parties at the Lansdowne Hotel and the Reginald Theatre in the Seymour Centre.

The extravagant drag queens and exotically dressed Fair Day attendees were a tantalising glimpse of the big one – the Mardi Gras parade to be held on the 2nd March.

All 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 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.