Record No. 8 / Kiroku No. 8

Record #8

by Daidō Moriyama

'It was 34 years ago, back in 1972, that I came out with the self-published photo journal 'Kiroku.' At the time, I was busy with all sorts of work for magazines. Partly because of a daily feeling inside that I shouldn't let myself get carried away by it all, I came up with the idea of a small, self-published personal photo journal. Without any ties to work or any fixed topic, I just wanted to continue publishing a 16-page booklet with an arbitrary selection of favorite photos among the pictures I snapped from day to day. By nature, it was directed first and foremost to myself rather than other people. I wanted a simple, basic title, so I called it 'Kiroku' (record). However, the publication of 'Kiroku' sadly ended with issue number five. Now, thanks to the willpower and efforts of Akio Nagasawa, 'Kiroku' the magazine has resumed publication. Or rather, we should call it a fresh publication. With the hope that it will continue this time, I am selfishly thinking of asking Mr. Nagasawa to publish 'Kiroku' at a pace of four issues per year. I happily accept his proposal and look forward now to embarking on a new 'voyage of recording.' - Daido Moriyama. Distributed in the US and Europe by Nazraeli Press, Daido Moriyama's 'Record' series is issued approximately 4 times each year.

48 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 2007

About the author

Daidō Moriyama (Japanese: 森山 大道, Hepburn: Moriyama Daidō, born October 10, 1938) is a Japanese photographer best known for his black-and-white street photography and association with the avant-garde photography magazine Provoke.

Moriyama began his career as an assistant to photographer Eikoh Hosoe, a co-founder of the avant-garde photo cooperative Vivo, and made his mark with his first photobook Japan: A Photo Theater, published in 1968. His formative work in the 1960s boldly captured the darker qualities of urban life in postwar Japan in rough, unfettered fashion, filtering the rawness of human experience through sharply tilted angles, grained textures, harsh contrast, and blurred movements through the photographer's wandering gaze. Many of his well-known works from the 1960s and 1970s are read through the lenses of post-war reconstruction and post-Occupation cultural upheaval.

Moriyama continued to experiment with the representative possibilities offered by the camera in his 1969 Accident series, which was serialized over one year in the photo magazine Asahi Camera, in which he deployed his camera as a copying machine to reproduce existing media images. His 1972 photobook Farewell Photography, which was accompanied by an interview with his fellow Provoke photographer Takuma Nakahira, presents his radical effort to dismantle the medium.

Although the photobook is a favored format of presentation among Japanese photographers, Moriyama was particularly prolific: he has produced more than 150 photobooks since 1968.