Daido Moriyama

The First Encounter

I can’t remember exactly when I first saw Daido Moriyama’s work, but I do remember the photograph: the stray dog. A tilted, grainy shot of a scruffy-looking animal staring back at you with suspicion. It looks rough, almost accidental, but it hits you right in the gut. That single frame said more about his photography than any explanation ever could. Restless, instinctive, alive.

The Street

Moriyama started shooting in the 1960s in Tokyo, a time when the city was buzzing, transforming, breaking itself apart and rebuilding all at once. He wasn’t interested in clean lines or technically “perfect” images. He wanted to capture the chaos, the loneliness, the fragments of life you notice when you’re just walking the streets. His style is even summed up in three words: are-bure-boke: grainy, blurry, out of focus. What others might call mistakes, he embraced as his way of seeing.

The Books

For Moriyama, the photobook is the real gallery. He’s published dozens. Japan: A Photo Theater (1968), Farewell Photography (1972), Shinjuku (2002). Page after page of neon lights, empty alleyways, anonymous faces, half-remembered moments. Since 2006, he’s also been putting out his Record series, small, zine-like journals of whatever he happens to catch with his camera. It’s endless. Like keeping a diary, but in photographs.

The Influence

What I like most about Moriyama is his freedom. He wasn’t out to impress with sharpness or perfect framing. He walked, he looked, he reacted. Click. No hesitation. That approach is so different from the way we usually think about photography, choosing the right lens, worrying about settings, waiting for the “decisive moment.” For him, every moment could be the moment.

The Lesson

What I admire most about Moriyama is his freedom. He didn’t chase sharpness, didn’t worry about the “right” settings, didn’t carry a bag full of glass. He just wandered with a small camera and pressed the shutter whenever something caught his eye. Click. Done.

That’s the real lesson. Photography doesn’t have to be perfect. It just has to be real. And maybe that’s why those of us who love fixed-lens cameras love them so much. They strip everything down to the essentials. Just like Moriyama.