Record No. 34

Record No. 34 is Moriyama at his least ceremonious: a working notebook issued to the public, without essay, theme or argument beyond the walk itself.

Akio Nagasawa Publishing issued this volume in 2017, 112 pages, softcover, at 27.8 x 22.0 cm. The pictures come from Moriyama's daily crisscrossing of central Tokyo, printed full-bleed in the grainy, high-contrast black and white he has used since the 1960s. His afterword records a doubt rather than a programme: that within the routine he is now and then overcome by a sense of bewilderment, asking what exactly he is trying to see through the finder, and what the photograph he has just taken actually is.

Moriyama began Kiroku in 1972 as a personal counterweight to his magazine work, stopped after five issues, and revived the series with Nagasawa decades later; it has run steadily since. The collection also holds Record No. 26, No. 31 and No. 32.