Shinobu: Daido Moriyama
Shinobu (30th April 2021)
Daido Moriyama
Edition 214/350
Daido Moriyama is one of my favourite contemporary photographers and I absolutely love this handbound book which makes up the first of four volumes in his “Women in the Night” series. The 80 photographs in this volume are inspired by the memory of a woman, named Shinobu, who Moriyama met in Shinjuku’s red light district. He says that the volume is “a profile of her as she appears in my memory”, with images of flowers and cropped images of women’s bodies juxtaposed throughout. Moriyama’s signature style is clearly evident with the high contrast black and white images (albeit with the inclusion of three very striking colour images - I have included my favourite below), prodigious use of flash, heavy use of grain to add more texture, and that almost haphazard framing style, which adds an intense rawness and energy to his photographs.
The volume is interesting to me because I came to Moriyama through his street photography. Moriyama is famous for his use of the Ricoh GR series, both film and digital, which use a fixed 28mm lens (although Ricoh’s most recent release, the GRIIIx uses a 40mm equivalent - it is otherwise identical to the 28mm equivalent GRIII). While a 28mm lens requires you to get relatively close to your subject, the majority of these images are far closer than you usually see in his street photographs. It gives the images a more intimate and personal quality, which makes perfect sense given the inspiration for the volume. Bear in mind that Moriyama’s explanation of the images is only given at the end of the book, in the afterword, which I think is a nice touch.
Enjoy!
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