Rockers

Weinberger always treated them correctly, former members of the Lone Stars, the “gang of thugs” from which the Hells Angels later emerged, told me. He was always there with his camera, on the sidelines and yet right in the middle of things. He was particularly appreciated because he generously distributed the prints of his pictures. Weinberger’s photographs therefore appear again and again in the photo albums of his protagonists. Those albums were to them what the Instagram feed is to today’s teenagers. Nothing was as important as the picture. The image of themselves as a “wild” gang member.

Karlheinz Weinberger’s photographs stand out when you leaf through these albums. No matter how often and how enthusiastically the youngsters photographed themselves, the picture they took of themselves was blurred and lacking in contours. Only the outsider Weinberger succeeded in showing that they were more than “rebels without a cause”. He had them pose for his camera and at the same time exaggerated the pose with photographic means. He saw the beauty behind the martial appearance. The pride and vulnerability that the early rockers tried to hide behind their patched-together uniforms and huge belt buckles.