Art is, in a way, creating something out of nothing. But photography, in its very essence, does not create something from nothing, it is a device for copying existing images.

Then why not start from this assumption of copying, so we can get closer to the essence of a photograph. It has no meaning to create art work by one’s own aesthetic and concepts, however, when people take photos, one’s aesthetic and memory are always included. This is a kind of everlasting contradiction. This contradiction is acceptable.

The world is not only one world, but the world itself is scattered, we just copy these scattered worlds by using photography.

— Daido Moriyama, Near Equal