Daidō Moriyama

“I’ve always wanted to frame my movies based on Daidō Moriyama’s photos. But it’s difficult. It’s really, really difficult because it’s almost like we have a set of ideas about what is a beautiful frame. But anyway, … somehow from time to time I go and look at his photos, like this one, for instance. I know it is kind of ordinary but I think it’s really, really good. He has some really crazy ones, like this one, I really like. There’s something quite powerful—storytelling—if you like.”

Daidō Moriyama (b. 1938) is a Japanese street photographer best known for his confrontational, black-and-white images depicting the contrast of traditional values and modern society in postwar Japan. Notable for his rejection of technical precision in favor of the grainy and high-contrast images produced by a compact camera, the artist captures a diaristic experience of wandering city streets. “The city has everything: comedy, tragedy, eulogy, eroticism,” he has remarked. “It is the ideal setting, the place where people’s desires are interwoven. It has remained and will always remain my natural element.” (Source: artnet)