Videos

The wind off the coast of New York is strong, yet there’s no sound of city noise. On the contrary: the Statue of Liberty stands perfectly calm on her island in the middle of the sea, while a few boats putter along past the city’s skyscrapers. But suddenly, just before the US election, McCain and Obama go sailing by. A sailboat has had both candidates’ portraits painted onto its sails. The wind picks up again, and everyone waits eagerly to see who will have been blown away after 4 November.

As every year around this time, it arrives in the city with a police escort: the Christmas tree for Vienna’s Rathausplatz. Right at 10 a.m., camera crews gather on site, just as announced in the press release. Traditionally, a different Austrian federal state donates the tree each year, but this time Vienna gave itself the gift. Two weeks later it will be lit for the opening of the Christmas market, and after the holidays it will leave the square quite inconspicuously, without any escort.

At a perfectly ordinary intersection in Soho, New York City, photographers and onlookers gather. A camera crew has taken up position and is waiting. Word gets around. The film will be called “Last Night” — and none other than Hollywood star Keira Knightley is set to take the lead role in the movie, due out in cinemas next year. She has previously appeared in films such as “Pirates of the Caribbean” and “Pride and Prejudice.” After an hour of waiting it’s already getting quite dark, but then, suddenly, at 6 p.m., filming begins.

You’re strolling through Wall Street in New York’s Financial District during the financial crisis, and what’s happening right in front of the stock exchange? The bear swipes at the bull with its paw, and the bull strikes back with its horns. These two symbols of falling and rising prices caught the fancy of the artist collective “barelypolitical.com,” who spent no more than ten minutes in front of the NYSE backdrop shooting a new video for their website. The group became known for their music video “I Got a Crush on Obama,” in which a scantily dressed young woman declares her enthusiasm for Obama. But back to the bear and the bull, whose “fight” I too managed to capture with my camera.

22 October 2008 was a fairly packed day for John Lithgow and Katie Holmes — two performances in one day. Unlike Lithgow, the play “All My Sons” by Arthur Miller, running for just 11 weeks, marked a Broadway debut for Holmes, wife of Tom Cruise and mother of Suri. Even several days after opening night, crowds still gathered in the evening outside the Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre to watch the stars get into their cars. Lithgow turned to both sides of the barrier, while Holmes, chewing gum, signed autographs on just one side before settling into her spacious car. him.at was there live.

SPÖ members and voters gathered on 28 September 2008 at 5 p.m., after the polls closed, to experience the first projection together. Journalists and photographers waited patiently for the arrival of lead candidate Werner Faymann. Images from Vienna around the SPÖ tent in front of party headquarters near the Burgtheater.

Tourists and sports fans fill Vienna’s city center. On Saturday, 27 September 2008, 24 hours before the first projection of the 2008 National Council election, the proverbial calm before the storm reigns. At least politically — thanks to the “Day of Sport,” there’s actually quite a lot going on at Heldenplatz. And so the balloons aren’t only flying in party colors.

50,000 people were not about to miss the pop event of 2008 in Austria. What’s more, it was the globally famous pop queen’s first-ever concert in Austria. While Madonna was still busy skipping rope with her band, paying fans lined up dutifully at the entrance. Paramedics, too, were getting a sense of the situation. Shortly after the gates opened, it turned into a race: the best standing spots in front of the stage were hotly contested — and gone in no time.

Vienna’s Naschmarkt district is known for its multicultural atmosphere. The Greens tried to make the most of exactly that on Friday afternoon, stopping there with their campaign bus.

A cool September day, people gathering, a jazz band playing. A relaxed mood settles over Victor-Adler-Markt in Vienna this morning. Then come the speeches — from local politicians all the way up to Werner Faymann, the SPÖ’s lead candidate. It’s election campaign season, and after the speech comes a walk through the crowd. That isn’t without its consequences.