Ben Apfelbaum

WORLD PRESS PHOTO EXHIBITION @ THE STATE LIBRARY OF NEW SOUTH WALES

The winners and finalists of the 63rd World Press Photo contest 2020 are currently being exhibited at the State Library. 

The winners were chosen by an independent jury of professional photographers who reviewed 73,966 images entered by 4,283 photographers from 125 countries. 

The photos seem to stop at the end of 2019 as there were not, as you might imagine, Covid19 photos of the ‘Black Lives Matter’ protest. I suspect that these images will appear in the 2021 exhibition. Oddly enough there are no photographs of political newsmakers as well.

You should steal yourself when you view this exhibition as the overwhelming majority of photos and the stories behind them are grim and depressing.

Previous exhibitions have had several photos that are humorous and part of the lighter aspects of life. 

However, given our Eurocentric, South East Asian  and North American point of view, courtesy of the news, there are many images relating to conflicts and protests that I had never heard of. 

The photos that I have selected for this article include some of the winners and some of my personal favourites.

When you go to the exhibition you will find lengthy explanations of the context in which the photo was taken and these are too lengthy to reproduce in this article. 

I was also disappointed that the photos were relegated to the small exhibition room at the State Library which meant that some of the lighting was so close that it created ‘hot spots’ such that you had to move around in order to see the photo clearly.

It also meant that fewer people could see it at one time, and even upon entering the exhibition’s panels were placed so narrowly that you inevitably found yourself unintentionally brushing up against the other viewers. 

I strongly believe that an exhibition of this prestige should be given more prominence and return to the available larger exhibition galleries where previous World Press Photo exhibitions were previously held. 

Most tellingly there was the fact that hardly anybody was viewing the 300 or so colonial paintings whilst the majority of visitors were cramped into the World Press Photo exhibition space,

The other point that I must make in relation to the Colonial paintings is that they were so close together and some of them so high up that there was insufficient space for labels. One had to go to a central touch screen, select the painting you wished to know more about, and then was you hands with the sanitisers provided. 

Furthermore, don’t miss the photos of indigenous protests during the 1950’s and 1960’s and the paintings of Captain Cook produced by indigenous  artists.

The World Press Photo exhibition runs at the State Library until Saturday 18th October, 2020. The exhibition at the State Library is the only venue in Australia where you can see the exhibition. 

Featured image : Steve Winter ‘The Tigers Next Door- 2nd Prize contemporary issues. Pics of attributed images 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.