“Can you come over real quick, just want to check if I have the pictures in the right order”, said M., after downloading my submissions to the computer.
Haha, that shows how well they fit the topics. NOT. Oh well.

These are the pictures I chose:

01 Amadeus

02 La Paloma

03 Imagine

04 O sole mio

05 Kiosk

06 Mein kleiner grüner Kaktus

07 Don’t worry, be happy

08 La Cucaracha

09 Hell’s bells

10 Je t’aime

11 Gangnam style

12 Somewhere over the rainbow / Wonderful world

In hindsight, maybe I would have chosen differently. Maybe I should have looked at the music videos as well as listening to the songs – the most blatant difference was with Falco, I heard it urban rugged, whereas he’s very posh in the video – I would have chosen the other photo alternative, with the caricature. Maybe also for the last one, “over the rainbow”, although the one I chose “felt” most like it when reviewing them. The jewelry picture with the number embedded may have also been more interesting.

Oh well, we live and learn. That’s one of the charms of the photo marathon, challenges you on multiple levels. It’s a focused exercise in creativity, amazing how much freedom one can find because of limitations (deadlines, themes, sequence of submitting, limit of submitting just one photo). The really awesome thing comes at the end though – we all get together for a nice dinner and look at all 24 participants’ series (anonymously), choose our favorite two pictures and rate the series. This way everyone gets feedback on their photography, sees what was more appreciated by others. Sometimes it coincides with the author’s opinion, sometimes it doesn’t – always interesting and fun.

The idea with setting songs as themes was genius – it was fascinating how you “see” the city differently if you walk with a song in your ears, looking for scenes – you see them popping up everywhere, whether it’s people chatting at a terrace or a dog watching its reflection (or some fish).
Big thank you for the organizers, they’ve kept it entertaining for the 7th time in a row. Kudos!

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P.S. for a different view on the same event, here is another documentation.