Ben Apfelbaum

WILDLIFE PHOTOGRAPHY OF THE YEAR EXHIBITION @ MARITIME MUSEUM

Adam Oswell with his ‘Elephant in the Room’ Photojournalism Category Winner
Adam Oswell ‘Elephant In The Room’ Photojournalism Winner
Creation by Laurent Ballesta – Underwater Winner
Dome Home by Vidyun R Hebber -Young Photographers 10 & Under Winner
Head to head by Stefano Unterthiner – Behaviour; Mammals Wnner
Reflection by Majed Ali – Animal Portaitd Winner
Rich Reflections by Justin Gill – Plant & Fungi Winner
The Intimate touch by Shane Kalya – Behaviour; Birds Winner

For many years the Wildlife Photographer Of The Year exhibition was held at the Australian Museum. Its new home, for the past several years, has been at the National Maritime Museum in Pyrmont.

The Wildlife Photographer Of The Year has been developed and produced by the Natural History Museum in London. The world renowned exhibition from London opened on the 8th April at the Maritime Museum.

The exhibition, now in its 57th year, is the most prestigious event of its kind providing a global platform that showcases the natural world’s most astonishing and challenging sights. 

Launched in 1965, with an initial 365 entrants, today the competition draws over 50,000 entries from all over the world. 

This year’s award winning images will be shown to more than a million people on its international tour. 

This year’s judges had the challenging task of reviewing the entries from 95 countries. Each entry is assessed by an international panel of industry experts applying complex criteria- including creativity, originality, and technical excellence. 

For many years the aim of the exhibition appears to be the conservation of the many beautiful creatures we see displayed. Climate change is mentioned as a threat to certain wildlife such as polar bears. 

Australian photographer Adam Oswell’s photograph ‘Elephant in the Room’, was the winner in the category of Photo Journalism. It is a disturbing image of a live elephant floating in a fish tank viewed by a delighted audience.The image captured the judges attention with the elephant attracting  a paying audience viewing unnatural animal behaviour, raising questions of the clash of entertainment versus animal welfare. 

There are approximately one hundred images which were either winners or highly commended in their individual categories. It is a must see exhibition not only for the aesthetic beauty of the images but also for the cumulative message of protection and care we must give to our environment. We are also fortunate that the Natural History Museum Of London continues to lend these remarkable competition entries to Sydney’s National Maritime Museum.. 

www.sea.museum

Featured image : The spider room by Gil Wizen Urban Wildlife Winner. Photographs of these award winnings photographs have taken 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.