Daido Moriyama Quotes

• Making a definitive declaration of intent or meaning kills the photograph.

  Daido Moriyama

  Photograph, Declaration

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• For me, photography is not a means by which to create beautiful art, but a unique way of encountering genuine reality

  Daido Moriyama

  Beautiful, Photography, Art

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• [My] photos are often out of focus, rough, streaky, warped, etc. But if you think about it, a normal human being will in one day perceive an infinite number of images, and some of them are focused upon, others are barely seen out of the corner of one's eye.

  Daido Moriyama

  Eye, Thinking, Numbers

  Sandra S. Phillips, Daidō Moriyama, Alexandra Munroe, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (1999). “Daido Moriyama: stray dog”, San Francisco Museum

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• If you were to ask me to define a photograph in a few words, I would say it is a fossil of light and time.

  Daido Moriyama

  Light, Fossils, Few Words

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• When I take photographs, my body inevitably enters a trancelike state. Briskly weaving my way through the avenues, every cell in my body becomes as sensitive as radar, responsive to the life of the streets... If I were to give it words, I would say: "I have no choice... I have to shoot this... I can't leave this place for another's eyes... I have to shoot it... I have no choice." An endless, murmuring refrain.

  Daido Moriyama

  Eye, Cells, Giving

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• Photography is the act of "fixing" time, not of "expressing" the world. The camera is an inadequate tool for extracting a vision of the world or of beauty.

  Daido Moriyama

  Photography, Vision, Cameras

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• The photographer who attempts to fit happily into the world by using the traditional perspective of the camera will end up falling into the hole of the "idea" he has dug for himself.

  Daido Moriyama

  Fall, Ideas, Perspective

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• I wanted to go to the end of photography.

  Daido Moriyama

  Photography, Ends, Wanted

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• Most of what I want simply slips away like water flowing through a net, and always what remains are only vague, elusive fragments of images... that sink into countless strata in my mind.

  Daido Moriyama

  Water, Mind, Want

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• I want to take a lot of Nasty photos.

  Daido Moriyama

  Want, Nasty

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