I wanted to have a quick, closer look at the Provoke Movement, which I hadn’t come across before, and its impact on contemporary Japanese photography.

The Provoke magazine series was first published in Tokyo in 1968 by Daido Moriyama, Takuma Nakahira (1938–2015), Takahiko Okada, Yutaka Takanashi, and Koji Taki. Only 3 issues of the magazine were eventually published, but the revolutionary style of the work contained in the publications had a profound effect on photography at the time both inside Japan and in the wider world.

Describing the style of the photographs in an interview with Tsuyoshi Ito in Aperture in March 2017, Simon Baker said: “If there is a unifying characteristic, it is an openness to chance, to experimentation, and to a radically different kind of photographic image—whether more like a screen print or a film still, an abstract painting, or however else we might think of it. It’s about being open to photography having different characteristics, potentials, and possibilities beyond the descriptive use of the photographic image”¹.

Looking through the images in Takuma Nakahira’s book “For A Language to Come”¹, and “Overflow”², the images are indeed raw, edgy and bleak, but they are also bold, exhilarating, uncompromising and visually arresting. This was a radical new style, a definite and intended break from previous stylistic norms in photography. At some point I would like to look more at Nakahira’s own philosophy at the time as set out in “Why as Illustrated Botanical Dictionary” published in 1973.

Daido Moriyama (1938-    ) is an internationally acclaimed photographer, best known for his street photography, and he continues to work in Tokyo. In his book about Moriyama’s street-craft, Daido Moriyama How I Take Photographs³, Nakamoto describes how Moriyama encourages his students to get out into the street and just take photographs. Nakamoto quotes Moriyama as saying “The photographer should just shoot whatever he observes, using all his senses, and if possible unselectively”⁴. And asked what a snapshot photograph was, Moriyama replied “Its like a cast net. Your desire compels you to throw it out. You throw the net out, and you snag whatever happens to come back – its like an “accidental moment” ‘⁵. Later in the conversation, Moriyama does qualify this direct approach though and stresses the importance of knowing a subject well. “You’re not going to develop a discerning eye unless you hone your ability to give something your full and undivided attention”⁵.

I would like to take both these pieces of advice into my photographic work. I like the synthesis of two seemingly opposing approaches, combining both a planned starting point and then more free-flow activity in the field.

I would like to spend a lot more time looking at Moriyama’s photographic work and methodology.

Notes

1. Aperture: The Provoke Moment. Interviews by Tsuyoshi Ito https://aperture.org/editorial/provoke-simon-baker/. 2017

• Nakahira T. A Language to Come, 1970. Overflow, 1974.

• Nakamoto T. Daido Moriyama How I Take Photographs. Laurence King Publishing. London, 2019

• Ibid. pp22

• Ibid. pp22

• Ibid. pp24