Photographer Daido Moriyama is a controversial one. He’s known for voyeuristic street images and overall fascinating plays on dark and light. Sometimes these images seem predatory and weird — but they all holistically exhibit his aesthetic. Those who’ve watched the documentary Near Equal will likely really respect his work. To many streeet photographers, he’s a wealth of inspiration and revered by many beyond just those who like street photography. In 2020, we reviewed a book of his about how he takes photos. But New Shinjuku by Daido Moriyama is a rare book that’s going to take you a while to get through because it’s as thick as a dictionary. Unlike reading Websters, though, you’ll be studying art.
Exploring the Book
New Shinjuku by Daido Moriyama is a weird book that’s also hard to find. Mine was given to me as a birthday gift two years ago by one of my dearest friends. You first notice the layout. It feels like an old school dictionary. That immediately brings with it a sense of dread if you were ever forced to asked to read those things growing up in libraries. But that dread is squashed when you realize it’s a photo book. It’s likely that you’ll ask yourself why this format was chosen. And truly, I can’t totally figure it out. The book surely could’ve been edited down by a lot and given larger pages with lots of white space around them. But New Shinjuku by Daido Moriyama is a book that will make you ask yourself lots of questions,
First off, this book is weird. Given how many photographs there are and the random things that Moriyama chooses to photograph, you might think of different things. These photographs might really only work in black and white. But they’re also really odd things. Sometimes you’ll see photographs of a woman in a dress from behind against the rest of a convenience store. At other times, you’ll see things like a grocery aisle. But consistent through the book is the light and shadow balance that’s found in all his work.
One of the best things about New Shinjuku by Daido Moriyama is the physical paper. It feels gritty — and that adds to the way that you percieve the photographs. His work is supposed to feel gritty and raw — not elegrant and beautiful. Sometimes it’s ugly. No matter what though, this is the first book that I’ve picked up in a while where I feel something from every image. In fact, I feel so many things that I needed to put the book down several times to not be overwhelmed.
This feeling, perhaps more than anything else, is part of art. Art is supposed to make you feel something. I’ve read tons of photo books where I don’t feel anything or simply just want to page past the images. If you’re an untrained artist, not into the arts, or not critical in how you think about photography, you could easily write this off. I’d imagine tons of members of the Sony Alpha Collective writing this book off as something not worth studying. But I’d see lots of graduates of Eddie Adams having higher level conversations about this book.
New Shinjuku by Daido Moriyama is a Photo Book for Photographers
Perhaps that’s the biggest difference: this is a photography book for photographers. It’s not for the every day casual — if you’re not looking at the images in this book and carefully running your fingers over the photographs to feel the grit of the paper and guide your eyes around the images, you’re doing it wrong.
New Shinjuku by Daido Moriyama receives four out of five stars. I wish it were a shorter book; but I’m very thankful for the emotional roller coaster it gives me. Want one? Try to snag it on Ebay.