shashasha

Daido Moriyama’s admiration of and fascination for Joseph Nicephore Niepce, the inventor of photography, and Saint-Loup-de-Varennes, the small French town where he lived, have been the subject of several previous works by the Japanese master photographer.

With “Dear Mr. Niépce”, Moriyama presents a further twist on his relationship with the origin of his medium, the photograph “View from the Window of Le Gras”. Throughout the book, Moriyama traverses geographical and temporal boundaries, overlays different motifs and themes, and juxtaposes photographs shot in France and Japan thirty or fifteen years ago.

“This book, Dear Mr. Niepce, contains photos of all kinds of things at Niepce’s old work place in Saint-Loup-de-Varennes that I had shot during my visit, as well as snapshots of the surrounding scenery, and one picture capturing the view from the window, juxtaposed with various images taken in and around my own place in Ikebukuro.

Niepce worked with a large photographing apparatus, while I used a compact camera that easily fits into the pocket of my jeans – definitely operating on quite a different scale.”
― from Daido Moriyama’s afterword (included in Japanese and English)