Takeno (Signed)

TAKUNO is a photobook by photographer Daido Moriyama featuring monochrome photographs taken in and around Takuno, Nima Town, Nima District, Shimane Prefecture (now Nima Town, Oda City) and its surroundings in the summer of 1987. It was first published by Sōkyūsha in 2005 with a first edition of 1,500 copies. The collection features photographs of a small village along the Sea of Japan coast, where Moriyama spent his early childhood and boyhood and which was his father’s hometown.

Takuno is a village in the Iwami region of San’in where residents live off both farming and fishing. Moriyama lived in this area several times during his childhood and spent his early years surrounded by the sea, the mountains, and the lives of the local people. About 18 years after visiting the village to pay his respects at his family grave, he compiled the photographs he took there into this photobook.

The book contains 22 monochrome photographs. For Moriyama, Takuno is also a place deeply connected to his childhood memories, as it is the burial site of his parents and older brother. Among Moriyama’s body of work, which has captured the bustle of the city and fragments of the streets, this volume focuses on a landscape tied to his own memories.

At the end of the book is Moriyama’s own “Memories of Irie.” Reflecting on the sensations he received from the sea and mountains during his childhood in his father’s hometown of Takuno, he speaks of it as a landscape that remains within him.

The book was designed by Koichi Hara. The photographs, printed in two tones, are housed in a slipcase-bound hardcover.

Daido Moriyama (1938–

Born in Ikeda City, Osaka Prefecture, in 1938. Photographer. Spent part of his early childhood and boyhood in Takuno, Shimane Prefecture.

In 1959, he entered the studio of photographer Takeji Iwamamiya to study photography. He moved to Tokyo in 1961, worked as an assistant to Eikoh Hosoe, and became independent in 1964. From the 1960s, he began publishing works centered on street snapshots.

In 1968, he published the photobook Nippon Gekijo Shashincho. That same year, he participated in the photography fanzine PROVOKE, working alongside Takuma Nakatsubo, Koji Taki, Yutaka Takanashi, and Takahiko Okada to challenge established photographic expressions.

In 1972, he published the photobook Shashin yo Sayonara. Through photographic expressions incorporating coarse grain, strong contrast, motion blur, and out-of-focus effects, he had a major impact on the history of postwar Japanese photography.

He went on to publish numerous photobooks, including Hikari to Kage (1982), Nakaji e no Tabi (1987), Shinjuku (2002), and TAKUNO (2005). He continues to photograph urban streets, people’s lives, and the memories of places.

He has held solo exhibitions at museums and galleries in Japan and abroad, and received the International Center for Photography (ICP) Infinity Award for Lifetime Achievement in 2012 and the Hasselblad International Photography Award in 2019.

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Eikoh Hosoe
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Sōkyūsha