Daido Moriyama: Tales of Tono

The Japanese photographer Daido Moriyama (b.1938) has showcased his work in dozens of extremely influential artist’s books which have had an enormous impact on the world of photography. He has published more than forty to date, all highlighting his experiments and interest in the transformative possibilities of the printed page. One of these is Tales of Tono, first published in 1976, which features work shot in the countryside of northern Honshu, Japan. Taking its name from a collection of Japanese rural folk legends, its non-narrative diptychs display a nascent nostalgia, whilst the formal qualities of the photos embrace the grainy and raw techniques that Moriyama brought to his more urban subject matter. Published here for the first time in English, to coincide with a survey of the artist’s work with William Klein at Tate Modern, Tales of Tono is the perfect introduction to one of the world’s most beautifully unsettling photographers.