Love Parade, Vienna 2013

Sometimes, I am just cursing my luck - I would go out, camera in hand with the great anticipation to take a picture, and another one, and another one, and another one - that fervent thrill of clicking the shutter and knowing that you've captured a moment in someone's like - a moment in one's own life - a moment. And then luck strikes out - streets are empty, streets are lifeless, streets are abandoned - because you've forgotten to check the event calendar of the city, or because the weather has decided to turn sour, or because you have simply decided to go to the wrong city. 

And then, there are those times when luck not simply smiles but shows you its multi-coloured rainbow teeth - when you have a camera, when you are in the right set of mind, and when the streets are full - because there is a parade. I happened upon such a parade in Vienna - a love parade - where even the police officers had abandoned their typical gloomy black uniforms for a touch of colour on the lapels or a flower in the hair; where the austerity of the elegance was replaced by the frivolous nature of the topless divas; where the children had decided that they will give up trying to understand the whole discussion between the left and the right and they simply joined the side of "love and happiness" ("what is inequality, daddy?"). 

Rainbow Parade - Accidental Encounters

The streets are often surprising. They catch us off guard, from the back when we are looking ahead: they fill our eyes with colors, when all we can see is monochrome dullness; they fill out ears with the sounds of joy and Madonna, when all we want to listen to is Scriabin or Prokofiev; they clear our breathing passages with the smell of strong smell of “Angel”, when all we want is the clarity of spearmint. And that’s why I love the streets! You can’t get mad at them about anything. They are there for you when you need them even when you don’t realize you do.

I started the day quite bored and ready to sit in front of the computer watching mindlessly movie after movie when I decided to take a walk. And ended up all of a sudden in the middle of a Love Parade. And the next 3-4 hours were spent walking around the crowds of people – people who did not know when to stop, who didn’t know why they should ever stop, people who knew what to smile for, people who knew that if you wear red trousers, there is no way your day to be bad. People who knew that PDA (public display of affection) is in fact beautiful – even if the individual persons aren’t particularly so. And so they did, undisturbed by the journalists taking their picture in an arrogantly intrusive way sticking their big Canons and lenses literally in their faces. Where is the boundary between being one of the crowd and being one in the crowd?