Village in the carpaths

Documentary- and reportage photographer Manfred Wirtz has recorded daily life in several villages in a remote valley in the Carpathian mountains in Romania since 1995.
Year after year he returned to the region, and succeeded in gaining the trust and confidence of the local people.
They never regarded him as an intruder, allowing him right into their lives with his camera.
VILLAGE IN THE CARPATHS is a photographic essay that portrays rural life in the north-western province of maramures. It tells the story of traditional farming communities, where time plays no role.
Centuries of war, countless political conflicts, dictatorship and even modern consumerism have not been able to penetrate their time-honoured cultural practice. Only after the fall of Communist dictator Ceausescu in 1989-90 has the outside world slowly begun to seep into their daily life.