# Provoke and are-bure-boke

> Grainy, blurred, out-of-focus, high-contrast black-and-white pictures of Tokyo's streets, roadsides, highways and rooms, often at night, made by the circle of the magazine Provoke (1968–69) and carried on into the early 1970s. Shot fast, often without looking through the viewfinder, tilted and cut off, then printed hard, they refuse clear information: are-bure-boke ('rough, blurred, out of focus') was meant to tear photography away from tidy photojournalism and from the clean image of the modern city.

- Period: 1968–1975
- Where it began: Tokyo, the small-press magazine Provoke, founded by the critic Kōji Taki
- Kind: Street & snapshot
- Also called: Are-bure-boke, Are, bure, boke (rough, blurred, out of focus), The Provoke era
- Page: https://lumogeny.com/styles/provoke/

## How the look is made

- Shoot fast, often without the viewfinder, from the hip or a moving car, and let chance set the frame.
- Let the picture go rough, blurred and out of focus; sensation matters more than information.
- Tilt the frame and cut things off at the edges; refuse a balanced composition.
- Work in the dark and into glare: night streets, neon, headlights, dim rooms.
- Print hard, crushing the blacks and burning out the whites, and keep the grain.
- Publish in sequences, in small magazines and photobooks, beside poetry and criticism.

## How it is lit

- Street lights, neon and headlights at night, the film pushed to its limit.
- Shooting straight into a lamp or the sun until the lens flares and the highlights burn.
- Dim rooms, bars and hotel interiors with a single practical light.

### A light plan from its choices (schematic)

- Key: a lamp, sign or screen, about 40° to the camera’s left, soft.

## Camera settings

28–50 mm · f/2–f/8 · 1/500–1/8 s · ISO 400–3200 (on full-frame), inferred. Wide apertures and slow, blurring speeds, about f/2–f/8 at 1/500–1/8 s, are inferred.

## Directing people

No one is posed: figures are glimpsed in passing, walking away, seen from behind, cut off by the frame edge or smeared by movement; the few who turn to look at the camera, over a shoulder or across a counter, seem caught off guard. Often there is nobody at all, only roads, signs and lights.

## Styling

Nothing is styled: strangers in the clothes of the street (school and work uniforms, caps, coats), and roads, bars, rooms and neon signs just as they were met; nothing is moved, dressed or added for the picture.

## Before you shoot it

The pictures show real people in the street and, in the second issue of Provoke, women photographed nude in hotel rooms; do not generate identifiable people or nudes in this mode. When the look is borrowed for a brief, use only its means (grain, blur, tilt, contrast, night light), credit the Provoke photographers as the source, and consider commissioning photographers who work in this tradition.

## Photographs

- © Daido Moriyama. Collection SFMOMA, gift of the Kurenboh Collection. In copyright, linked: https://www.sfmoma.org/artwork/2014.1175
- © Gen Nakahira / Courtesy of Osiris. SFMOMA, promised gift of a private collection. In copyright, linked: https://www.sfmoma.org/artwork/PGPH08.001
- © Daido Moriyama. Collection SFMOMA, Accessions Committee Fund purchase. In copyright, linked: https://www.sfmoma.org/artwork/98.446

## Sources

- Provoke (magazine), Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Provoke_(magazine) (1968–1969, three issues of 1,000 copies; founders Taki, Nakahira, Takanashi, Okada; Moriyama from no. 2; subtitle 'provocative materials for thought'; Anpo protests and student radicalism; grainy, blurry, high-contrast are-bure-boke; halftone printing; 1970 book First, Abandon the World of Pseudo-Certainty; influence on Japanese photography of the 1970s and 1980s)
- Takuma Nakahira, Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Takuma_Nakahira (1938–2015; co-founder 1968; For a Language to Come 1970; are, bure, boke as 'rough, blurry, and out of focus' and bypassing conscious control; turned away from it with Why an Illustrated Botanical Dictionary, 1973)
- Daidō Moriyama, Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daid%C5%8D_Moriyama (born 1938, living; joined Provoke with no. 2 in 1969; Japan: A Photo Theater 1968, Farewell Photography 1972, A Hunter 1972 with Stray Dog, Misawa 1971; influences include William Klein and Shōmei Tōmatsu; shoots without the viewfinder; Hunter pictures taken while driving past)
- Kōji Taki, Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%C5%8Dji_Taki (1928–2011; co-founder and main funder; the magazine as 'an attempt to fill the gap between politics and art')
- Yutaka Takanashi, Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yutaka_Takanashi (born 1935, living; member of the Provoke collective; Toshi-e, Izara Shobō 1974)
- Japan Theater (Daido Moriyama), SFMOMA essay: https://www.sfmoma.org/artwork/99.688/essay/japan-theater (Nakahira started Provoke in 1968, where Moriyama's work appeared; the high-contrast printing of this period)
- Room (Daido Moriyama, 1969), Art Institute of Chicago: https://www.artic.edu/artworks/202855 (the image first appeared in the second issue of Provoke; series of nudes made in hotel rooms in 1969)
- SFMOMA object pages for Moriyama, ON THE ROAD (1969) and KARIUDO (Hunter) (1968), and Nakahira, La nuit 1 (ca. 1968, photogravure): https://www.sfmoma.org/artist/Daido_Moriyama/
- Daido Moriyama, exhibition texts, Photo Élysée, Lausanne, 2024 (PDF): https://elysee.ch/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/Daido_Moriyama_Textes_EN.pdf ('Moriyama's photographic vocabulary included his favoured Kodak Tri-X film as well as zoom lenses, high-contrast papers, photocopiers, and TV stills'; in New York in 1971 'He carried a half-frame camera, allowing twice the number of exposures')
- Daidō Moriyama, Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daid%C5%8D_Moriyama (often shoots without looking through the viewfinder; are-bure-boke)
- Provoke (magazine), Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Provoke_(magazine) (1968–1969; grainy, blurry, high-contrast pictures)
- Kodak Tri-X, Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kodak_Tri-X (introduced around 1940 in sheets rated ASA 200 daylight; released in 35 mm and 120 in 1954; usually rated ISO 400; pushing to EI 800 gives very good results, EI 1600 needs more sophisticated processing, stand development reaches EI 3200)

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From Lumogeny (https://lumogeny.com/), a service of Van Riel Online Services. The shoot sheet for your own camera, lenses and lights is on the page: https://lumogeny.com/styles/provoke/#sheet