Sashin yo Sayonara [Bye Bye Photography]

June 14, 2013 · by sarah · in Books, Photography

We are fans of Daido Moriyama, but since he is popular and the copies of his books that we see are usually expensive, we can’t claim to know his entire work very well.

In Hong Kong one day, we saw a copy of his book selling for HKD 29,000, which is about slightly more than S$4,500. On the web, you see it being sold for $6,000. Now, this book seems like a treasure; wrapped, there was no way to know or guess just what lay within.

We forgot about the book, but one day in Japan, we were doing our favourite thing – observing pretty stationery and beautiful books in a store – and I was doing the usual “Oh what Daido Moriyama books do they have here” sweep, and I saw something and thought my eyes were playing tricks on me.

Bye Bye Photography, the spine says.

Best buy. This seems to be small format reprint, and the price was approximately S$40. “Grab first, talk later!” I said as I hugged the book.

When I got back, I tried to find out more about the providence of this reprint. Apparently, the original negatives/ prints do not exist and reproductions were made from the first book. There is a version by PowerShovel books, and this one I am holding is from Kodansha. Fascinating.

It was touching to see a seminal work from 1972 in print, never mind that I was holding a format almost half the size of the original. Here’s the text that appears at the start of my edition of the photobook.

At the time, I was stuck and overwhelmed in that narrow gap between an excessive expectation of and excessive disappointment in photography. One could say I was just at the point of drowning in a sea of thought about my own photography.

But then, at last, in making this photobook, I had swam to shore and was released from this consuming sea.

I wanted to take photography to its very end and nullify it. […]

But the one thing that was nullified was me and photography as though sneering at my attempt continues to be at my side (albeit aloofly so) even with the passage of forty years.

I can’t confess to being any good at reviewing photo books. But to add to the mystical opening, you have dark pages within, with smears and scratches and glimpses of a world that no longer exists. There are hidden figures, people dancing under trees, commercials from another era, long dresses … images that seep from and off the page into the everlasting.

The book shows its age, but then valiantly tromps off into the future, right into a reader who’s viewing for the first time in 2013, awed.

PS. It appears that this 2857 yen version is being sold at a premium online. If you are interested in the book, maybe it’s time to head to Japan.

Interview: Martin Parr “Boundaries Merely Exist in People’s Minds” :

Extra: Which photo books do you consider to be your personal favourites then?

Martin Parr: I would like to mention two books. To my mind, the most influential and radical photo book published in the last century was William Klein’s New York. Unlike Robert Frank’s equally influential The Americans, Klein succeeded in changing the way photographers created books. His radical approach to design, his ability to capture energy and dynamism in his photography, all the effects of his work rippled across the world; you could see it in Argentina, in Portugal, all the way to Japan. During the sixties and seventies, while Europe stuck to the conventions of the photo book – with two white pages and a picture on the right, such a hallow, respectfully beautiful format – Japan was throwing out those rules. Japanese photographers adopted Klein’s spirit and used it to change the way of presenting books entirely. Daido Moriyama’s Bye Bye Photography for example was as radical as Klein’s New York because he tried to tear up the rules of conventional photography. He threw away his negatives, he scratched them and made this energetic book, which took Klein’s idea one step further. So Bye Bye Photography is probably my favourite photo book. But we should always keep in mind how radical Klein’s book was in 1956, and how radical it still is today. It forever changed the way photographers make books.

Moriyama grijpt de stad bij zijn nekvel Eddie Marsman :

Moriyama (1938) werd bekend met zijn innovatieve boek Farewell Photography (1972), een van de eerste evocatieve grotestadsboeken waarvoor hij de meest uiteenlopende fotos bijeen raapte. Gescheurde affiches, fragmentjes porno, auto tegen lantaarnpaal, kwebbelende mond, wandelende benen - nog altijd valt er nauwelijks een touw vast te knopen aan zijn bedwelmende beeldenstroom. Foam toont niet de fotos maar een complete reeks paginas die uit de recente reprint is gesneden: wellicht de enige manier om de filmische ervaring op te roepen.

Zijn fotos een verslag van iets of een kunstwerk? Dat was de vraag die Moriyama bezighield; een vraag die hoort bij de jaren waarin het persoonlijke medium fotografie niet voor het eerst weer eens losgeweekt moest worden van het documentaire notitieblok dat het ook is.

Een echt antwoord heeft hij nooit gevonden zegt hij zelf, hooguit nieuwe vragen. Hoewel die nergens worden geformuleerd, zijn ze wel af te leiden uit de dertig jaar en tachtig fotos die het restant van zijn overzicht beslaat. Hij verdiept zich in licht en schaduw (op muurtjes, autobanden, drogende was) en het effect van vorm (gore wasbak, damesschoen), onderzoekt even later de suggestie van leven en dood (foetussen op sterk water) en van stilstand en beweging (reizigers op het perron).

Een echt geheel vormen die telkens in kleine series gepresenteerde onderzoekjes niet. Maar dat kan ook nauwelijks bij een fotograaf die zo divers met zijn medium omgaat. Zodra Moriyama de metropool weer bij het nekvel grijpt, zie je waartoe al die toch wat belegen vormstudies kunnen leiden. Zoals in de wand met twaalf fotos waarop vrachtwagens voorbij zoeven, een vliegtuigstaart het beeld uitschiet en de nacht zich ontfermt over een boos jongetje: de rauwe, suggestieve, chaotische verbeelding van de grotestadservaring.