If there is one theme that jumps out from his work – one that can be regarded as his essential territory, the wellspring of his photography – it is Tokyo. He also draws inspiration from William Klein’s confrontational photographs of New York, Shomei Tomatsu’s trenchant social critiques, Andy Warhol’s silkscreened multiples of newspaper images, and the writings of Jack Kerouac and Yukio Mishima. As Gabriel Bauret points out in his introduction to this collection of Moriyama’s work, Light and Shadow is the title of a book published by Moriyama in 1982, but it could just as easily be applied to his whole photographic oeuvre, given the dialogue he so powerfully sets up between light and shadow, black and white.

The Photofile series brings together the best work of the world’s greatest photographers, in an affordable pocket format. Handsome and collectable, the books are produced to the highest standards. Each volume contains some sixty full-page reproductions printed in superb duotone, together with a critical introduction and a full bibliography. The series has been awarded the first annual prize for distinguished photographic books by the International Center of Photography, New York.