flashmob: freeze @ munich central station

Yesterday at 3pm there was a so called “freeze” at the Munich central station, following freezes all around the world during the last months, one of the most famous ones being the Frozen Grand Central in New York.
I found a map of cities in which freezes took place (it’s most likely not a complete one, of course), and 70 videos of freezes in other cities.

Now, what is a freeze, and what is the reason behind it?

People gather at one spot, talking, drinking, eating, reading – doing whatever you do really – and when the leader gives the signal (yesterday it was a very short whistle), all people freeze in whatever they are doing at the moment and stop moving.
The why, alas, is a bit harder to answer. Freezes are part of the so called “flashmob” movement (first initiated in 2003) – and it is done because it is, well, a lot of fun I guess.

A flash mob is a large group of people who assemble suddenly in a public place, perform an unusual action for a brief time, then quickly disperse.

To give you an impression about other flashmob activities, I compiled a short list of the funniest videos I’ve encountered in the last few months:

• a public musical
• bananaphone!
• no pants day 2008
• suicide jumper

Now, let’s return to Munich and yesterday – having a few hundred people freeze from one second to another in a public place has, of course, some implications, one of them being tourists or other bystanders who simply have no clue what the f*** is going on right now. “Margret, what are they doing?” or “excuse me Sir, ehm, are you alright” are sentences I heard a lot yesterday. Hilarious faces, hilarious questions – all in all simply a lot of fun.
Moreover, especially when different “classes” of people participate (not only students and pupils), it’s just awesome to look at. Imagine how it would look if you just froze a bunch of everyday people in their everyday movements in an everyday public place!
Compared to other freezes (I’ve spent at least 5 hours on youtube a few weeks ago), the one in Munich was great – a lot of people (difficult to guess, but I’d say at least 200), most of them holding extremely still for 3 minutes (until the whistle was blown a second time), and *no* applause; the flashmob just woke up into life again and continued with what they were doing before, leaving the place in different directions. In a lot of videos people applaud themselves after the freeze wears off, and in my opinion this totally ruins the whole thing.

My last point here is about photography: I was there, and my plan was using a tripod, putting the shutter speed to a rather high value (2-5 seconds) in order to capture a blurred and very unsharp mass of people moving through the frozen crowd of insiders. Unfortunately, it was way too bright without a very dark grey filter (making shutter speed values of a second or more in bright light impossible), and not having a zoom lens didn’t really help either.

Therefor I simply froze on the steps with the camera and the tripod next to me in the middle of a conversation with a handsome young girl who’d asked me before why there were so much people with cameras on the steps – and simply took very few photographs in the last 20 seconds.
Actually, I was rather upset afterwards … having a few hundred people freeze in one spot in everyday life is the dream of every portrait photographer! They don’t move so you can use rather low shutter speeds and still get sharp pictures, they won’t mind you taking their portrait (otherwise you don’t participate in a flashmob action where everybody can see you), and well, even if they do mind … they’re frozen, alright :) …

[thanks to codename Mary for telling me about the action]