This quote originally comes from Stefan Sagmeister’s little story he told the listeners in his lecture in Salzburg this March and is more or less the motto of my business trip to Salzburg, where I was photographing for the Salzburg Seminar, as you already know. And it was great! Meeting so many very interesting, very nice and very important personalities definitely is as enriching as it is exciting. And it was a good way to brush up my English because of the high intellectual level of the discussions and lectures I had to photograph. Below is a selection of the best photographs just for you. I will release some of them into public domain later on because Wikipedia is missing many of the speakers’ photographs.

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Thanks to Andrew Phelps who talked to program director Benjamin Glahn who then called me I got this very special job. Because of my broken car I was forced to take the first train to Salzburg in the morning and spent the four hours with a big Chinese family traveling through Europe, then take a taxi to the beautiful Schloss Leopoldskron where the seminars are taking place since 1947 (if I am not mistaken). Only ten minutes after my arrival I was briefed and taking photos like mad in the big conference hall. I was so nervous that I would shoot too less photos so I made sure there definitely were too many.

I felt lucky being able to move around while the faculty speakers where holding their speeches or discussing with the about fifty fellows in the room who were mostly highly respected lawyers, all of them specialized in human rights. And there were damn interesting speeches held and discussions made. On one hand I really was a little annoyed that I had to move around all the time worrying about good photos instead of sitting there just listening, on the other hand I felt incredible dumb because often I didn’t really know what something that’s been said was about; especially the one time when John Bellinger III, Senior law adviser of Condoleezza Rice and a highly skilled speaker, once asked his listeners who of them knew about article three of the Geneva Convention in detail. All hands were up. I really was lucky that I was not part of the audience that moment. Then he went on on how to differentiate between the terms “lawful” and “unlawful”. Now I really consider to subscribe the Herald Tribune for a few weeks to build up some knowledge on international affairs and foreign policy.

On my second day I was prepared for doing Lisa’s favor. I grabbed an Seminar Salzburg note pad and waited for my employer, program director Benjamin W. Glahn, to finish talking with her. My hands were already shaking. Until he was finished I took some shaken, not usable photos and after a few seconds I shyly approached the grand dame of justice.
“Justice O’Connors?”
(I know, I know, her name is O’Connor instead of O’Connors. But I was sooo very nervous!). She rose her head and looked at me. I took a deep breath. Now Yasunobu Sato, Professor at the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, University of Tokyo, who sat next to her also looked at me.

I returned to the aisle between the desks when she began shuffling her notes, while I was still looking at her four lines. With my hands still shaky I couldn’t get a good picture the next five minutes. And unfortunately I had nothing to put the notepad with the autograph into so I was carrying and protecting it the whole day until I had a little time to put it in a safe place in my hotel room.

On the second day Nasra Hassan, currently director of the UN Information Service, held also a speech about the motivations of islamistic suicide bombers and what these groups strive for. She had her speech notes in written form, put on her glasses and now and then looked down although she is a marvelous speaker. When I was approaching her from the left for another couple of close-ups she interrupted the sentence she was just uttering but without a pause or a voice change: “I don’t want any photos to be taken with my glasses on”. She looked at me and seemed dead serious about it while seventy people were having a good laugh. I put my camera down and just listened until she was finished.
I was late for lunch after backing up my photos and she caught me in the library again. In perfect German she said to me:

Actually I still got the photos of Ms. Hassan with glasses on in case some of them are really good even though I have to take off her glasses in Photoshop then. But without editing they are doomed to never to be seen ever again.
This little special request by her was instantly picked up by the other peoples, fellows and faculty, and when I was trying to take some photos in the coffee break most of the people said “Oh no! Not with my glasses!”
Michael Hartmann, adviser to the attorney general of Afghanistan, instructed me before his speech not to take any photos of him below his chest where his quite impressive belly started. “These photos will go to my mother. I don’t want to make her sad.” he quipped and went on “Where other people have a six pack I have a whole chest”.

The worst part of it all was the obligatory group photograph. I’ve never had to cast so many people not blinking and easily to identify in a single photo. Luckily I didn’t have to arrange them myself. When the mass of people got arranged, Musa Salmanu, Staff Officer Second Grade Nigerian Air Force, handed me his Sony bridge camera that I could take the group photo with his camera too. And so did Suzannah Linton, associate professor and director LL.M program in human rights. I was a little afraid that more and more people would hand me their camera but it was only the two of them.
To make sure the group photo works out I shot several of them at different aperture stops in series to make sure that I would be able to paste the face of any person from another photo of the series, if it looked better and to get the exposure just right.
The worst part was telling seventy people so say “Cheese” the same time. After about fifteen pictures I made the requested photos with Musa’s and Suzannah’s camera and said a heart-felt “Thank you!” to all the people eager to be released for the buffet lunch. Musa also wanted me to take another photo of him and a man in a blue shirt. “Take one of me and the major, please!” he said and positioned himself next to Major William Austin, associate professor of law, USAF Academy.

But I was not free for lunch yet, because the faculty staff got positioned along the the lake. It was even harder in this group photo against the mountains of Salzburg and the beautiful lake behind the castle. Afterwards I shot the scene without people from the exact spot again at different lens stops that I could give the sky and mountains some details afterwards in Photoshop I ultimately didn’t anyway.

In general I shot about 1500 photos in the two days, working about nine hours every day but I don’t miss a single hour of them because it was incredibly interesting to get a deep insight into the politics and methods of Human Rights on a grand scale.

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