William Klein and Daido Moriyama

In the new year I went to see an exhibition of two photographers' work:

http://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-modern/exhibition/william-klein-daido-moriyama

I've seen quite a lot of Klein's work before, in books and on the web, but it was great to see so many big prints in the flesh - they were stunning. Klein's photos of New York in the 1950's are amazing. They are very 'in your face' street photographs.

Sometimes people are oblivious to him, often they are responding.

 

He is quoted as saying that he wanted to 'shoot the sh*t out of New York'. Ideas of what you should or shouldn't photograph were of no interest to Klein. There were photographs taken in urinals and photos from high class restaurants.

If people were there, he wanted to photograph them.

I wasn't as familiar with Daido Moriyama's work. His work is more surreal and mysterious than Klein's, a good deal of it erotic, and plenty is unsettling.

There is the same interest in people though, and the environments in which they find themselves.

Often there seems to be some sort of narrative going on, but one that you don't fully understand.

Generally Moriyama's work seems more experimental than Kleins - there were many different methods of printing used for the photographs, a lot more than I can show here.

I was impressed by both photographers interest in everything, and their desire to photograph everything, no matter what or where is is. It's the real thing, not some package, and that is both frightening and exciting. They seem to be telling stories, and the stories are always centred around people.