Ben Apfelbaum

THE WINNERS CIRCLE : HELPMANN AWARDS 2017

Featured photo – Patti Smith and Bluesfest Touring 2017 won the Bobby for the Best International Contemporary Concert. All pics by Ben Apfelbaum.

The 2017 Helpmann Awards Ceremony featured excerpts from the Musicals The Book Of Mormon, Velvet, My Fair Lady, Green Days American Idiot, Aladdin, Beautiful:The Carole King Musical and the Ballet construct.

Ably hosted by Jan Van De Stool (Queenie Van De Zandt) and Tim Draxl the big winners were the Belvoir’s The Drover’s Wife, written by and starring Leah Purcell, and the Adelaide Festival’s production of the opera Saul, directed by Barry Kosky.

The award for Best Female Performer in a Supporting Role inan Opera went to Lorina Gore in King Roger who had to perform her role in Polish – the first singer in Australia to do this!

There was some controversy regarding the Awards given to Callum Francis for Best Male Actor in a Musical  Kinky Boots and relation to Michael James Scott for Best Male Actor in a Supporting Role in a Musical. This was because both performers were overseas imports and this drew criticism from some circles who felt that only Australians should be eligible for these awards. The public did not seem to agree with these critics as both musical have been drawing large audiences.

Richard Tognetti AO received the JC Williamson award and Rob Brookman AM received the Sue Nattrass award.

For a full list of award winners visit the Helpmann website –

http://www.helpmannawards.com.au/

 

 

 

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.