Tokyo Eye, Part II

PHOTOGRAPHER DAIDO MORIYAMA DOESN'T BLINK

Daido Moriyama is an instinctive photographer who prefers taking pictures to theorizing about them. Nevertheless, we managed to track him down this week to discuss the ups and downs of his long career.

The Harvard Crimson: How have your opinions on photography changed over the years? Do you take photos for different reasons now than you did in the past?

Daido Moriyama: It's been 35 years since I became an independent photographer, and since 35 years is a long time, naturally my thinking has changed along the way, the way waves do. Nevertheless, the fundamental way I view photography has not really changed very much in the end. What does change is the way I view each subject.

THC: Can you explain this change more specifically?

DM: Overall, the subjects of the pictures that I take come from snapshots of street scenes in cities in Japan, like Tokyo. I shoot as I walk along the streets, as I walk around cities. That is my basic method of taking photos and so I haven't really changed the main subject that I photograph over the years.

THC: As you walk around a city, how do you decide which images you want to capture on film?

DM: When I'm walking around a city without my camera, I don't really bother paying attention to what's around me. But when I have my camera with me, all the senses in my whole body, not just my eyes, come alive and begin to observe things. When that happens, my memory and all the various elements within me come out. So all the various things, like my memory and my interests, look outside of me, and I am then able to see all sorts of things. My body becomes an antenna.

THC: Your early photos tended to be blurry and out of focus, while your later ones are mostly crisper and sharper. What accounts for this change?

DM: Actually, many of my more recent photos are also blurred, although overall I don't use that style as much as before. People tend to have that opinion, that my style has changed a lot. But when I was younger, in the past, I was interested in not just the main subject I was shooting, but also the aura, the feeling surrounding the subject. The aura surrounding where I stood and the general atmosphere in the city-these various auras interested me. I wanted to somehow capture them in my photos. In order to do that, I would use the no-finder technique-that is, taking the photo without looking through the viewfinder. In order to capture in photos what I wanted, I naturally came to use that technique often. Due to this no-finder method, my photos tended to be blurry and out of focus. Later, I came to realize that I could convey the aura that I sensed around a subject even through more defined images. Even now I do use the no-finder technique sometimes, but since cameras have become automatic taking blurry images is harder to do. In the past, there was no such thing as automatic focus.

THC: When you look at a photograph that you have taken, are your feelings toward the image different from when you actually took the photo and saw the real subject?

DM: When I see the photos now, like when I visited the exhibit here at Harvard, I look at them and really do think that they are good photos, that I did a good job. Each one conjures up specific memories, like how young I was when I took one, or how I did something in particular when taking another. So I think both about those memories and that overall I like the photos. But, after all, photographs are about the moment you take them. So I can't really look at a photo now and compare how it was back when I took it. There are obviously lots of differences between the person I am now and the person I was when I took the photos.

THC: Some critics have described your work as "romantically tragic," while others call parts of it eerie and creepy. Did you consciously aim to get certain reactions out of your audience, or did you not think about that at all?

DM: People naturally view photographs in different ways and have their own reactions. I don't consciously try to make a photo romantic or tragic or something. I think that whatever my mood is on a particular day, that is probably what comes across in the photos I take. For instance, if I'm feeling sad when I take a photo, then I think that feeling is probably conveyed in the photo. So I definitely think that the individual's feelings influence a work, but that is on the side of the photographer. Once a work is completed, it can be interpreted however you want-I have no influence over that. There have been times early in my career when I manipulated photos in the printing process to achieve the particular image that I desired, and I think that some viewers have gotten caught on that, since at times I have gone for particular emotional reactions.

THC: We know that Warhol and Klein influenced you in the '60s; are there any people now who you find do particularly intriguing or interesting work?

DM: No, there aren't any.

THC: None at all?

DM: No.

THC: Are you surprised that the "Stray Dog" image has become so famous?

DM: Maybe not surprised exactly, but when I took that picture, I certainly didn't think that that dog would make his way around the world the way he has. So I guess, in that sense, I am a little surprised.

THC: I don't know how much you pay attention to other photographers' work, but do you see any particular trends in photography at the moment? Where do you think photography is moving in the future?

DM: Aspects of photography will of course change over the years. But the basics of photography itself never really change; it depends on the people creating it. So I'm not really interested in future trends. I'm only interested in the current reality of me holding my camera and taking photos. I think there's really no point in speculative thinking about changes in the future. There will continue to be changes in cameras and the art of photography, changes in the possibilities available in photography due to technology, as some trends grow dominant and others become extinct, but those are issues to consider later, as they arise.

THC: How do you think changes in technology, like digital cameras and computer manipulation, are influencing photography?

DM: Similar to what I said before, the technology is already completely different now; over half of the cameras being sold currently in Japan are digital, so there are these changes taking place. In the end, however, people are the ones who use the equipment. If they don't know what they are doing, if their understanding of photography is not solid and they don't know how to use the possibilities offered to them, then no matter how much the technology improves, it doesn't do any good. But if there are people who know how to make use of the new opportunities, then photography will continue to grow and prosper. Yet I have always thought of that type of growth and change as separate from the basic fact of me taking pictures.

THC: Do you have any plans in the future, any projects that you want to work on?

DM: Right now I am working on taking photos of Shinjuku, a part of Tokyo, and I am hoping to put the pieces together in a photo collection coming out next year. For me, when I'm working on something, I'm only interested in that one project-I only focus on the current project.

THC: So you don't really think about what you're going to do next?

DM: I don't think about the future until I'm done with the current project.

Translated from Japanese by Jennifer Gordon.