British Journal of Photography October 2012

After a couple of very uninspiring issues, October's BJP has in depth interviews with William Klein and Daido Moriyama.

Thankfully avoiding pompous language (notwithstanding a "discombobulation") and meaningless phrases, the interviews are interesting and enlightening.

Klein's seminal work is Life is Good & Good for You in New York: Trance Witness Revels published in 1956. It was very deliberate antidote to Cartier Bresson's The Decisive Moment published five years earlier. Cartier Bresson set a paradigm that was disturbed by the expressionism of Klein. This image  is an example from the book:

I explored more of Klein's work on his online gallery and was impressed. It is art, but not art for art's sake; Klein's images are cleverly composed with interesting subject matters. This is another example:

Cineposter, Tokyo 1961

 Klein wanted to be an artist; he received an education in Paris, courtesy of funding as a GI just after WWII. After New York, He published three more books: Rome (1958), Tokyo (1964) and Moscow (1964).

Moriyama is less well known in West; despite a prolific career mainly producing photobooks, Moriyama has come to the fore relatively recently. As with Klein, I like the images because they are cleverly composed as well as artistic. This is a fine example:

Tights, 2011

Moriyama has an extraordinary breadth of subject matter for the semi abstract as above to the earthy people image:

Provoke no 2, 1969