H.B.S.

December 2006, Salzburg.

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Summer 2006, Cologne.

For some reason, I was laughing throughout the taking of this shot. Oh by the way, before the I forget again, the previous photo was inspired in part by the excellent and amazingly creative self-portraits of Rebekka Guðleifsdóttir.

I had intended this one to be the 400th photo here but couldn’t set it up in time and therefore I went with the previous photo. A’ways, it didn’t turn out exactly as I wanted mainly because I’m photoshopically challenged! With slightly better PP skills I’m sure this would have looked more decent but I’m satisfied with it as a proof of principle. Hopefully, next time it will be even better.

Oh, and one of my shots got featured over at Vazaar.

400th photo here!

January 2007, Edinburgh.

February 2007, Konigswinter.

October 2006, Cologne.

We go celebrity hunting today. This is the great Shubha Mudgal. I think her voice has the power to etch glass. You can read something about her here.

The Dead Heart – Midnight Oil

I’ll go out on a limb and say it; this has to be one of the best greatest hits compilations, ever. There I said it and now you can start throwing whatever it is you throw at people who make one sided statements like that! Wait, there’s more sacrilege coming, apart from this collection I haven’t heard any of their individual albums but I’ll still argue that they are one of the best bands in rock. Do you feel like calling me names like hypocrite and shallow now? I mean shouldn’t a true fan hear each and every one of their songs on every one of their albums and then make such statements? Well, perhaps one day I’ll, but right now I’ll still argue they are great based on this one collection.

Midnight Oil is or rather was an Australian rock band from Sydney who were (and still are) famous for their hard rock sound, strong espousal of left wing causes, incendiary live shows and of course their powerful and hard hitting songs. Led by the charismatic and outspoken Peter Garrett (who actually ran for the Australian Senate on a Nuclear Disarmament Party ticket) the band brought a new sense of left wing activism seldom seen in the mainstream music scene. They were fiercely independent and refused to tone down their commitment to sometimes unpopular causes. Famously, they performed in front of the Exxon headquarters in New York in 1990 in protest of the Exxon Valdez spill carrying a banner that read, “Midnight Oil Makes You Dance, Exxon Oil Makes Us Sick”. They also created a stir with their performance at the closing ceremony of the Sydney 2000 Olympics where they performed wearing shirts that were emblazoned with the word ‘SORRY’, a public apology for the suffering Australian aboriginals went through for more than 200 years under white rule and a direct affront to the Australian PM John Howard sitting in the audience who had refused to apologize to the aboriginals in a gesture of symbolic reconciliation. The band was unfortunately dissolved in 2002 as Garrett left to concentrate on his political career. Apart from Garrett the band consisted of Rob Hirst on drums, Jim Moginie on keyboard/guitar, Martin Rotsey on guitar and a changing line up of bassists.