Daidō Moriyama is regarded as a pioneer of photography because he broke away from traditional notions of clarity, beauty, and order in postwar Japanese photography, and instead created a raw, visceral way of seeing the world. Here’s why he is considered pioneering:

1. His “are, bure, boke” style (grainy, blurry, out-of-focus):
• Moriyama deliberately embraced imperfection—grainy textures, harsh contrasts, tilted horizons, motion blur.
• This went against the sharp, carefully composed tradition of Japanese photography at the time, and aligned with the restless, chaotic energy of postwar urban life.

2. Challenging photographic norms:
• Rather than presenting polished, documentary-style images, he captured fragments, fleeting impressions, and ambiguous details.
• His work questioned whether photography should represent reality or could instead express sensation and subjectivity.

3. Focus on the underbelly of society:
• Moriyama turned his lens on backstreets, neon signs, stray dogs, seedy nightlife, and everyday urban moments in Tokyo and Osaka.
• By documenting what was often ignored or hidden, he gave a voice to the overlooked and challenged sanitized views of Japan’s postwar modernization.

4. Influence of Western avant-garde, but with a Japanese twist:
• He drew inspiration from William Klein and Andy Warhol, mixing Pop Art sensibilities with Japanese street life.
• This blending created a uniquely Japanese version of experimental, gritty street photography.

5. Radical photobooks as artworks:
• His 1972 book Shashin yo Sayonara (Farewell Photography) was groundbreaking. It deconstructed photography itself, filled with distorted, cropped, or overexposed images, almost suggesting the “death” of photography as pure representation.
• Photobooks like Japan: A Photo Theater (1968) and Stray Dog (1971) are now classics that influenced generations worldwide.

6. Global influence on street and contemporary photography:
• Moriyama showed that photography could be personal, chaotic, and emotional rather than technically “perfect.”
• His work opened the door for later street photographers who embraced imperfection, immediacy, and subjectivity.

In short, Moriyama is a pioneer because he redefined what photography could be: not a mirror of reality, but a raw, fragmented, and emotional reflection of life in a rapidly changing, chaotic world.

Here’s a visual “family tree” of influence around Daidō Moriyama. You can see how artists like William Klein, Andy Warhol, Eikoh Hosoe, and Shōmei Tōmatsu shaped his vision, and how in turn he inspired figures such as Araki, Nakahira, and contemporary street photographers—alongside international parallels like Winogrand.

Here’s the expanded map: you can now see Moriyama’s roots (Klein, Warhol, Hosoe, Tōmatsu), his role within the Provoke movement (with Nakahira, Taki, Takanashi), and how that rippled outward into Japanese street photography, conceptual photobooks, and global street practice.

It also connects to Robert Frank and Garry Winogrand, showing the parallel currents in the U.S. that resonated with Moriyama’s break from tradition.

Here’s the annotated map—each key figure now has a note explaining their unique contribution. You can see how Frank’s poetic realism, Klein’s raw street energy, Warhol’s pop sensibility, and Tomatsu’s postwar vision all fed into Moriyama. From there, the Provoke movement reshaped Japanese photography, influencing everything from conceptual photobooks to today’s global street photographers.