Hiroshima Rising

Jochen Manz, 2014

Whitepress, Freiburg
www.whitepress.com.

 

ISBN 978-3-86206-354-3 (large format)

ISBN 978-3-86206-353-6 (small format)

For most people, Hiroshima brings to mind the tragic events of August 1945.
What they don't usually know is that Hiroshima is the hometown of Mazda.
Both company and place are inextricably linked not only in history, but in spirit. A spirit that pervades everyone and everywhere, and which is uniquely captured on camera by documentary photographer Jochen Manz.

Hiroshima Rising

Jochen Manz, 2014

Whitepress, Freiburg
www.whitepress.com.

 

ISBN 978-3-86206-354-3 (large format)

ISBN 978-3-86206-353-6 (small format)

For most people, Hiroshima brings to mind the tragic events of August 1945.
What they don't usually know is that Hiroshima is the hometown of Mazda.
Both company and place are inextricably linked not only in history, but in spirit. A spirit that pervades everyone and everywhere, and which is uniquely captured on camera by documentary photographer Jochen Manz.

Om Shanti Om

Jochen Manz, 2010

Rapid Eye Edition, Cologne
www.rapideyemovies.de

ISBN 978-3-9811822-1-7

Twentythree Bankers 

Jochen Manz, Cologne 2009

White Press, Cologne
www.white-press.com
24 pages
Edition of 250

"With Twentythree Bankers, Jochen Manz moves the Ruscha typology into new territory. The photographs inside depict employees of the bank HSBC at a moment when the camera's shutter incidentally caught them with their eyes closed. A note on the publisher's website indicates that the book is dedicated to "Ed Ruscha and the so called 'Financial Crisis' of 2008/2009. and a blink." In fact, these images were rejects from a commission to make portraits of company leadership, made shortly before the crisis. Technically, they remain attractive pictures, with even lighting and a narrow depth of field that invite the reader to contemplate each visage. Although they fail to satisfy the original purpose of the setting, there is nothing grotesque about the images. Instead the photographs portray a moment of precariousness and vulnerability, in which the subject's self-composure for the camera has failed. In short, and with quite a political implications, these pictures portray people who are not entirely in control of their actions. Some of the bankers are smiling and laughing with remarkable sincerity. Others are poised as though withdrawing into the world of sleep or imagination. In reverie, meditation, or involuntarily "caught", they are undeniably human. For while Manz's book is well-deserved provocation to the perpetrators of global financial collapse, the gesture is leavened with sympathy."

Various Small Books, Phil Taylor