Jochen Schmidt-Oehm schmoehm's PhotoArt

Prologue

I was born in Stuttgart, southern Germany, six days after the outbreak of the second world war. I grew up in a liberal home with my brother who was three years older than me. My early contact with the world of music and arts was through piano lessons, initially in classical music and later in jazz. I received a humanistic education and spent long periods abroad in Paris, London and Lausanne (CH). Apart from music my other great interest was in photography as an art form. In 1961 I began my professional career in a small but famous printing company. I got married in 1968 and have two children. Forty-seven years later, by which time the company where I had begun my apprenticeship had grown into a significant media group incorporating two printing companies and three publishing houses, I put this message on my office telephone: „The member of staff you have called is no longer available; you can leave a message after the tone, but you will not get a reply“.