Ben Apfelbaum

VIVID LIGHTS UP THE CITY SKYLINE ONCE AGAIN

Like fine wine there are years of vintage quality and years of good quality. This year  was a good quality year.

I admit that I did not attend the Vivid satellite displays at Chatswood and Taronga Park zoos but confined myself to Circular Quay, with a hurried excursion to Darling Harbour.

I found that there seemed to be less light displays around the Quay and there seemed to be an over emphasis on twinkling lights and neon poles. This may be due to the fact that the artists put on these displays at their own cost and mounting the light sculptures is very expensive.

Nevertheless the Harbour  Bridge, the Sydney Opera House, Customs House, the Museum of Contemporary and Cadman’s Cottage had displays of riotous colour.

The Customs House display complemented the Sydney Opera House projections with the theme of local underwater species and organisms. As a tribute to the growing impact indigenous artists have on the wider visual arts community, much of the Sydney Opera House display was in ochre colours.

I found the displays in the Botanical Gardens and Darling Harbour were more imaginative and to fill the gap of artists  not submitting works the corporate/ advertisement industry has gleefully filled the vacuum.

Last year 2.25 million people visited Vivid and its concerts  amd shows.

I don’t know the figure for this 12th Vivid but like the Royal Easter show, inclement weather can keep numbers down and there was quite a bit of this during its three week run.

Due to the fact that the construction work on the Circular Quay end of the light rail had been completed, there was this year a smoother and uninterrupted flow of people around the Quay, especially mid week.

Like a moth, I cannot resist displays of multi coloured light and I will be back, I hope, for Vivid number 13.

 

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.