Daido MoriyamaRandom Walk

“Basically, I am in love with black and white photography. If you are wondering why, I may say that there is something ‘dreamy’ about black and white, and that I appreciate its ‘symbolically abstract’ quality.
Anyway, in the end I think it all comes down to the fact that the things depicted in a black and white photograph simply generate the image and impact of an ‘alien’ scenery of sorts.

In other worlds, both my self and other people who look at black and white photographs don’t see only the concrete events they depict, but in my view these pictures hit us right from the start with their transferred ‘extraordinariness’, instantly stimulate our imaginative understanding of the imagery purified into shades of black and white, and let us experience a different reality through the encounter with the ‘alien world’. This is at least about what attracts me so much about black and white photography.

On the other hand, if you ask me why I take color photographs, especially color Polaroids, I think it is probably because they allow me to directly experience the essence of photography, which is to make copies of the real world. Paradoxically that overly real world captured by color Polaroids takes me to an ‘alien world’.

After all, it seems like when I walk the streets, I am looking for somewhere other than here, in other words, I probably release the shutter only when I feel I have found the entrance to that ‘alien world’.” - Daido Moriyama