Daido Moriyama
Tights
Part of the collection: "Tights and lips"
Chosen image the one below the one above can't be removed for some reason:
Part of the collection: "Tights and lips"
Chosen image the one below the one above can't be removed for some reason:
Visual Language: Tights, Constrast, Black and white tonal values, grain, proportion, shot close to the subject, line, shape, pattern, bold, 3-D, power.
Themes: Intimacy, Objectification, Urban life, Abstraction, Intrusive?
Technical Aspects: Silver gelatin print 34.3 x 41.7cm, Sharp focus, Chiaroscuro Lighting
One day I was drinking coffee with my girlfriend when I caught a glimpse of her legs, which happened to be in stockings with fishnet tights over the top. I immediately started taking photographs.
This picture was taken in 1986, and what you see is what you get. The shoot was quite natural: I asked my girlfriend to make an occasional pose, but didn't particularly direct her. I tend not to have feelings or thoughts while I work: I am completely immersed in the visual world of the subject.
Moriyama is known for his raw, gritty gaze, his portrayal of Japan’s dark underbelly in the post-war era. His early career coincided with the cultural changes in that country as it struggled come to terms with the devastation caused by the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the resulting surrender of Japan ending the pacific war in 1945. Moriyama devoured and regurgitated what he saw, and it is therefore interesting but unsurprising that his work can feel predatory.
The Tights with their stark, abstracted lines stand apart from his grainy, chiaroscuro street photography. Yet the sentiment behind the pictures is the same: a desire to observe and preserve the everyday details that are so often overlooked. He sees things the everyday in a very specific way.
The Tights with their stark, abstracted lines stand apart from his grainy, chiaroscuro street photography. Yet the sentiment behind the pictures is the same: a desire to observe and preserve the everyday details that are so often overlooked. He sees things the everyday in a very specific way.
"Being a photographer is a constant battle with countless fragments; the camera allows me to get closer to a subject and capture its detail. The world appears very erotic in my eyes. Tights are only one example".
http://uk.phaidon.com/agenda/photography/articles/2012/october/04/daido-moriyamas-best-shot/
With many of the Tights pictures it is not immediately clear what you are actually observing and I feel like it is this detail that draws the viewer in, they become intrigued by what is presented to them.
Chiaroscuro Lighting
Chiaroscuro in art is the use of strong contrasts between light and dark, usually bold contrasts affecting a whole composition. Chiaroscuro also is a technical term used by artists for using contrasts of light to achieve a sense of volume in modelling three-dimensional objects, such as the human body. I thought that it was interesting that Moriyama's lighting techniques as photographer that explores the very modern and urban can be likened to historic fine art works.
http://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/chiaroscuro
Another work by Moriyama: Stray dog, Misawa, 1971
From Nowness- Diado Moriyama: The Mighty Power
Websites used: http://www.anothermag.com/current/view/2171/Daido_Moriyama_Tights_and_Lips
My Hommage
Mainly I drew inspiration from the Visual Language within the image, however I decided to see if I could achieve a very different tone to my image by changing a few of the visual and technical details. Really I wanted experiment with the altering of visual aesthetic,seeing if it were possible to remove the eroticism and intimacy that Moriyama's work is known for but still clearly pay homage to parts of his image. I wanted to channel his theme of abstraction in regards to elements such as close crop, unusual viewpoint affecting proportions and the idea of repeated pattern. I too used Black and white, however I went for rather more muted tones and did not make my image too heavy on the contrast as I felt that this would introduce some eroticism which remember I wanted to dispel from this homage completely. Following that line of thought I also chose to include normal black stockings rather than fishnet tights, again to further abstract the subject matter.
I also made sure that I referenced the posing of the leg in some way, in my own image I included a leg creasing as I felt that this was a key element compositionally within Moriyama's Tight series. I also noticed that it acts as the identifier in Moriyama's image, so I thought that it could fill the same role in my own image.
Technically I decided to use a shallow depth of field, mainly to create a sense of abstraction, but also through blurring to reference the intrusive nature of Moriyama's work.
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