photo: © Daido Moriyama
How I Take Photographs takes readers on an inspiring walk with legendary photographer Daido Moriyama as he explains his groundbreaking approach to street photography. For more than half a century, Moriyama has offered a unique view of Japan and its people. Here, he gives fans a rare opportunity to learn about his methods, the cameras he uses, and the journeys he takes with a camera.
Japanese photographer Daido Moriyama—born in Osaka in 1938—took his first photograph at the age of thirteen. His photography is recognizable by its coarse grain, strong black-and-white contrast, frequently blurred images, and tilted perspectives. His snapshot-like photography had already appeared in many photo books, and although he works mainly in Japan, he regularly visited New York and Paris in the 1960s, where he was influenced by Andy Warhol and Jack Kerouac, but above all by William Klein.
When Moriyama began doing what he does in the mid-1960s, hardly anyone wandered the streets of cities and towns with a camera in hand. Today, however, with cheaper digital cameras and smartphones readily available, everyone carries a camera—and therefore has the means to take snapshots.
Nevertheless, as Moriyama observes: “Most people only take snapshots of things around them in their daily lives. Fundamentally, that means they do not leave their comfort zone. But on a city street, everything you encounter is strange and unfamiliar. That is what street snapshot photography is: capturing the unusual and the unknown.”
As a young photographer, Moriyama had the opportunity to follow in the footsteps of two of Japan’s most highly regarded photographers and apply his photographic knowledge more broadly. From the outset, however, he was interested only in street photography. Before he knew it, he had become one of Japan’s most famous photographers, with worldwide recognition. Many international museums have acquired his work, and numerous celebrated photographers working today have also been influenced by Moriyama.
Besides presenting him primarily as a snapshot photographer with a simple ‘just point and shoot’ approach, this edition shows that there is another Daido Moriyama: one who stares into the viewfinder in Sunamachi, lost in thought, and who, on a ‘highway photo shoot,’ feels compelled to examine what he is doing. Every shot, every fraction of a second, is based on countless questions, conflicting perspectives, and, not least, moments of traveling there and back.
How I Take Photographs – Daido Moriyama
Pages: 208
Price: €22.99
Publisher: Laurence King Publishing. Language: English. This article refers to the English-language edition.
