Daido Moriyama: 1971/NY

Rating:
Summary: Extraordinary
Review: This is one of the most extraordinary photography books in print, and certainly the most important book of Moriyama's available in the US. I cannot recommend it too highly. It's the result of Moriyama's trip to New York in 1971 and the photographs he took with his Olympus Pen W half frame camera (he shot over a hundred rolls). A document like this is the best way to experience Moriyama's photography because, as you'll see in this book, he doesn't so much shoot individual photographs as he does a series of photographs that together make up a work. This is an entirely different vision of photography from the dominant Euro-American approach to creating disparate images (think the decisive moment), and yet it's nothing like our usual sense of the photographic essay or series, either. Moriyama creates a new understanding of what's photographable, in my opinion. A book that's likely to become expensive and scarce quickly, so add it to your working library while you can.