‘Stray Dog’ by Daidō Moriyama
Pondering the rich socio-political narrative of a single image
Firstly, it’s a dog and I like dogs. Secondly, it is a very strong image. Thirdly, this image was on the pin-board over my work desk, so it is probably the photograph that I’ve looked at the most over the years.
Japanese photographer, Daidō Moriyama is one of my favourites because of his varied and interesting approach to the art… He’s known for experimenting with distressing his negatives, by hanging them outside and exposing them to the elements, and for his fascination with bold surface pattern and structure that often goes beyond the image and what it may represent. He took this photograph in 1971 of a Stray Dog, in Misawa, Aomori.
There are several things about this photograph that make it so successful: I would not have thought to crop it so tightly, but this is one of the elements that makes it such a powerful composition of a very impressive and solid dog sitting so solidly within the frame.
Taken solely on a formal basis, the structure is perfectly balanced and quite stark — it reminds me of the yin-yang symbol with its interlocking black and white shape and to me it references Japanese calligraphy. As an abstract, the picture works, regardless of what it’s actually a picture of.
