1964-68
Daido Moriyama made his debut as a photographer in the early 1960s, after leaving his hometown of Osaka. In Tokyo, he was welcomed by the masters Shōmei Tōmatsu and Eikoh Hosoe, who opened the doors for him into the world of publishing.
Defeated in World War II, Japan faced American occupation and the Westernization of its customs, while celebrating the economic reconstruction of the country. In photography, committed humanism emphasized the great national dramas on the pages of magazines with large print runs. Printed in rotogravure, Camera Mainichi and Asahi Camera courted readers with portfolios, reviews and contests, along with technical articles on the practice of photography.
In 1965, Moriyama published high-contrast photographs of fetuses in the magazine Gendai no Me. In Camera Mainichi, he showed photographs of Yokosuka, the military base made famous by the photos of Tōmatsu. Although he aimed to cover the grand themes, he also photographed daily life in the workers’ districts and the experimental theater of the playwright Shūji Terayama, building a varied social panorama. The bohemian routine of his job soon seduced him, coupled with a personal style which is consecrated as are, bure, boke (grainy, shaky and blurred).
His countless works earned him a cash prize as an up-and-coming photographer, which he used to publish his book Japan, A Photo Theater (1968). They were the first steps for an artist who had started to become uneasy about how images were being used in the mass media.