A photograph that made me think – untitled by Daido Moriyama

Daido Moriyama’s work was the revolutionising how people viewed and thought about photography. As part of the Provoke photography era in Japan, his work was in a sense going backwards as he was distorting images by use of blur and push processed film creating dark and grainy images, where as the majority of photographers were looking for cleaner images. A lot of Moriyama’s work was political, looking at the westernisation of Japan post World War Two. His personal work had the same technical approach, but in terms of subject was a lot more intimate. This photograph is an example of his more intimate and personal work and one that makes me think. The subject being nude creates a sense of closeness that Moriyama has with her, yet remains distanced from her and not focusing on her face creating a mysterious image. The framing of the image also puts an interesting aspect of intimacy in place as it’s framed as a snapshot. A sudden moment in time that Moriyama has deemed worthy to document and not necessarily consider the framing of the image, and this makes me think about how this moment and image strikes Moriyama as a person and artist.

Nathan McLaren-Stewart

L1 Photography, University of the West of England