Daido Moriyama’s grainy, high-contrast photographs epitomise the are, bure, boke (“rough, blurred, out-of-focus”) aesthetic that emerged around the late-1960s Provoke circle. Roaming Tokyo’s streets—especially Shinjuku—he captures the pulse of post-war urban life with raw immediacy and restless energy.
A prolific maker of photobooks, from Stray Dog to Farewell Photography, Moriyama embraces small cameras, quick gestures and serial printing to privilege experience over perfection. His radical approach reshaped street photography globally, influencing generations drawn to the poetry of the everyday.