Sunbathers, South Bondi, 2000
Ben Apfelbaum
35 mm colour transparency
SLIDES 111/88

Each year, an outdoor public exhibition of contemporary sculpture, called Sculpture by the Sea, is held along the Bondi-to-Tamarama coastal walk. Ben Apfelbaum was recording the fourth Sculpture by the Sea when he spied this group of sunbathers below him at South Bondi. He took just one photograph and captured a relaxed tableau of Australians sunning themselves after a dip. Little has changed since Max Dupain captured similar scenes in black and white. The surfboard is shorter, as are the costumes, but the almost ectothermic Sydneysider continues to relax in the sun, by the sea.