Me and My Song by Stefan Lober

Me and My Song

by Stefan Lober

Photography is surely one of the most inspiring things in my life. But music is another important source for emotional and touching experiences. I feel most connected to songs with meaningful, profound and/or mystic lyrics. Thus, songwriters like Bob Dylan, Van Morrison and Leonard Cohen have always been my favorites and some of their lines are permanently spooking my brain. Some of the lyrics have accompanied me since 20 years and escorted me through ups and downs in my life.
One day this summer I started wondering, which songs or lyrics might be of equal importance for other people and how these reflect the personality of the person. Having a background in portrait photography it was just a small step to create the idea of a photo project, that I later named “Me and my song”.

The concept is simple.

The participant chooses a line from a song that is (for whatever reason) import for his/her life. Then we shoot a couple of portraits “in the mood” of the song. Typically, this is done on film with a Bronica SQ shooting one roll (12 exposures) per participant. The person chooses the best fitting picture and provides a handwritten transcript of the text line, which is pasted under the photograph. Additionally, a short statement of the participant concerning the motivation for this particular song/line is given in an accompanying text.

I would love to portrait characters as different as possible showing the whole range of human beings together with the lyrics they are strongly connected to. I just started and took about a dozen of pictures, but I’m hoping to get the chance to do a lot more…

Here are some examples.

All parts of this project can be seen here: http://www.zonefocus.de/me-and-my-song/

My instagram feed: https://www.instagram.com/wwfsmd/

My facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/zonefocus/

 

Mo: “The song describes my life. Never give up, no matter how you fall. Just carry on your own way.”

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Monica: “Friendship is and has always been one of the most important things in my life. I’m thankful for the few best friends I have. I would go through fire for them any time. It’s simply priceless and of elemental importance – like eating and drinking. Without them I would not be here anymore.”

–

Larissa: “If you learn to dance in the rain, you don’t have to spend your life waiting for better times.”

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Ashutosh: “I like this song because it provides me strength for what I believe right and continue doing it, even if the whole world goes against me.”
(The line of the old Bengali song says: “If no one responds to your call, then go your own way alone.”

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Dana: “I simply love Disney. You’re never too old for it. This particular song makes my flesh crawl and I just start feeling happy.”