220 x 278 mm

soft cover, 122 pages, signed


Record is the personal magazine which Daido Moriyama first self-published in 1972-1973, intended as monthlies, until the rebirth of the project in 2006. Over the years, Record has become the artist's personal diary and notebook. Or, as he likes to put it, his 'lifeline' that runs underneath the numerous projects that punctuate his existence.

As you have probably recognized, the photo across the last two pages of this issue shows a young Nobuyoshi and Yoko Araki. When I met Mr. Araki for the first time in years in connection with my recent business for a certain magazine, the photo was pasted into a handmade scrapbook he had brought with him, in accordance with the theme of that particular project. He jokingly showed it around among the staff, and I seized the opportunity to make a copy of it. It is such a magnificent picture of the two of them together that I just had to do it. The photo must have been taken around the time of Araki's early photo book, Sentimental Journey, and I was totally captured by the impact and the message that the genuine print of that snapshot of two youthful naked fellows conveyed. Once I had finished copying it, I asked him right away to allow me to include it in the next issue of Record, and after giving me a rather puzzled look at first, he immediately encouraged me to go ahead and use it, adding "that's what photos are for you know." What a cool dude he is, I thought in the back of my mind. I've always thought that there was no photographer around who has ever gotten as close to the essence of photography as Araki, but hearing him casually mutter that last remark made me especially happy. Before discussing artistic and expressive qualities, Nobuyoshi Araki is a person with a natural attitude toward taking and showing photographs, and as such he has absolutely understood the nature of photography. That is, the potential of photography as a domain of endlessly repeated copying.

Daido Moriyama, the afterword of Record n°37