Japanese Photographer Daido Moriyama

(The Three Views of Japan No. 3 - Mutsu Matsushima [1974]. Image borrowed from artnet.com)

A life on the streets: Photography museum celebrates Daido Moriyama's 70th birthday

By DANIELLE DEMETRIOU
Special to The Japan Times, May 22, 2008

"I'm not always a stray dog. Sometimes I'm a cat," says Daido Moriyama. "Or an insect."

A stray dog with piercing eyes and a hint of a snarl may be the most famous of the monochrome images captured by the Japanese master of black and white photography. And as Moriyama nears his 70th birthday, it is clear that his feral days of roaming the streets, camera in hand, are not yet over.

"As long as I can walk, I will continue wandering the streets," he says. "The streets are my territory and I still wander them aimlessly with my camera."

Moriyama is among Japan's most important postwar photographers. Gritty and textured, stark and poignant, his images have long cast an unsettling spotlight on an ever-changing society.

Read the whole story:
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fa20080522a1.html

Link to Moriyama daido's official web site:
http://www.moriyamadaido.com/