Daido Moriyama, Lost Sailor
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Tags: alley cat, Daido Moriyama, Japan, nichome, pachinko, Photography, Salaryman, Shinjuku, stray dog, Tokyo, Urban, Yakuza
This entry was posted on Friday, August 21st, 2009 at 7:32 pm and is filed under Photography, Zokyo. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
August 22nd, 2009 at 1:56 am
Wow, I loved every bit of this video. Which surprised me.
August 22nd, 2009 at 10:07 pm
We’ve had the conversation a hundred times.
Every time I see his work or watch videos like this I think he seems like an interesting , driven man.
But, only 5% of his photos touch me in anyway at all.
The other 95% do absolutely nothing for me, they seem like bad snapshots.
I want to like his work, but I just don’t.
We’ll add it to the immense list of things you and I disagree on.
(thanks for the video and another chance to confirm my feelings tho)
August 22nd, 2009 at 11:56 pm
“Art is in the eye of the beholder.”
Thanks for the comment. Its funny to me cuz I feel like you feel strangely obligated to like him or be touched by his work for some reason, and guilty or something that you don’t. And so you have to defend your disliking him. You don’t need to like it. I don’t care if you don’t like him, or his photos, the same way you don’t care if I don’t like somebody that you really admire. It goes without saying but nobody will like, or be touched by, or ‘get’ all the supposedly greats.
For me, I’m after that “nasty” (I think ‘gritty’ was the word they were after) look. I like dirty, grainy, fucked up black and white photos, and he is the king of it. I like that type of photo because of him. The first time I saw his work, I had never heard of him and had no idea who he was and was totally moved by it. I had no idea that he was some Japanese photo celebrity. Maybe thats your beef with it; that he is considered a demi-god and for what? For making something a 3rd grader could make? To his credit, he was the guy who more or less innovated that super lo-fi street style. But its beside the point. So the masses latch onto him, cuz thats what they do. And thats what irritates you, cuz thats the kind of thing that would irritate you, and I can say that cuz I know you. But admittedly, maybe thats not the case at all.
I love his stuff. And I love his approach. And what he said in the end about, getting out of the house before 12, walking alleys like a stray dog, going home taking a shower, then heading back out to Shinjuku, getting a drink, back on the streets, another drink, back shooting, until the crowds come home, and admitting that he doesn’t have the most glamorous job, but that something about it was… seductive. That speaks directly to me. Thats exactly what I want to do, exactly what I want to have, to be seduced by it all.
Like it or don’t like it. Its fine by me. Although I think you should just finally admit that you love him and you think he’s a genius. Nobody will call you on it. I promise it wont be detrimental to your image. But if you can’t come out of the closet yet, I understand. Your secret is safe with me….