Provoke was a Japanese magazine which rejected glossy commercial imagery and the style of documentary photography. The Provoke era refers to its influence on photography made in post-war Japan. Provoke was initially set up to challenge the idea that photography has its own language, independent of words. Following the decimation and rebuilding of Japanese society after the Second World War, photography played an important part in a new self-definition of Japanese visual style, set apart from Western influences.

Provoke was a magazine with only three issues in the late 1960s, but its influence continued into the 1970s and 80s. It set itself apart from the photojournalistic style of the day, looking for a more subjective voice and validation of the person behind the camera. The images are often grainy and disorderly, reflecting the social and political upheavals taking place across the nation. The magazines main purpose was to contrast with the glossy imagery of commercial magazines which were around at the time. Takuma Nakahira and Yutaka Takanashi were founding members of the Provoke group. Daido Moriyama joined a little later, bringing with him his early influences of Cartier-Bresson, but with a desire to be a witness with more self-expressive intent.

This youtube clip details how the Provoke magazines was set up and then the ways in which it began to be used by the three photographers listed above to change the practical and theoretical meaning of photography. Provokes main focus comes from the name, the photographers aimed to provoke people with their imagery and even more so provoke visual language. The background is crucial to understanding the emergenece of breaking the boundaries of documentary photography.

Provoke was founded during the moments of massive changes in Japanese society around the 1960’s. One of the most notable for triggering this emergence was the ratification of the US-Japan security treaty which lead to companies in japan acting in an neoliberal way which had never been seen before in Japan. Protests from workers in factories are even more so farmers began to protest and millions of Japanese citizens took to the street campaigning and protesting against the government. This is when protest photography became huge being accompanied by about 80 protest ooks which were filled with images of the mass amount of participations that these protests had. The images and books spread visual information and was used to mobilize new protests by provoking them to join. The photographers documented the performances of these events and the images became dynamic and ephemeral which are the exact elements which ‘Provoke’ as a magazine adopted in their photography.

All three of the photographers which founded provoke magazine began to show a new conceptual approach to photography were the outcome was unpredictable as they shot the photos without looking through the viewfinder and instead ‘ shot from the hip’ creating spontaneous imagery. The artists were questioning established documentary photography and experimenting with breaking the boundaries of what were thought to be the rules of photography. Their images were judged as being rough, grainy and blurred which contrasted with what classic photographers labeled documentary photography should be. Nonetheless there were always shown differences between the three photographers as Yutaka Takanashi who was the most classical amongst the three photographers did not seem to push the boundaries as much as the others, still using the viewfinder when making his images. ‘Provoke’ seems to be an examination of photographers possibilities and lead the way for other photographers to push the boundaries of photography.

“Today, when words have lost their material base—in other words, their reality—and seem suspended in mid-air, a photographer’s eye can capture fragments of reality that cannot be expressed in language as it is. He can submit those images as a document to be considered alongside language and ideology. This is why, brash as it may seem, Provoke has the subtitle, ‘provocative documents for thought.”
— Manifesto of the Provoke Group by Kohi Taki, Takuma Nakahira, Takahiko Okada, Yutaka Takanashi, and Daido Moriyama – http://www.photopedagogy.com/provoke.html

Photography was too explanatory, too narrational for me. […] It was natural for me to join Provoke. […] They said they were photographing atmosphere. But I was very precise and careful. […] But my work changed after I saw how they worked. I saw that I could not control everything. I understood that photography is only a fragment. I used to be a photographer who interprets things via language. And then Provoke changed me.
— Yakuta Takanashi

Furthermore i watched this video by Daido Moriyama  where he reflects on the rebellious youth culture of late 1960s Japan, a period when he and his colleagues were working on the avant-garde photography magazine Provoke. He discusses his attempt to deconstruct the medium in his series Shashin yo sayonara (Farewell Photography) (1972), though it ultimately deconstructed him. Daido Moriyama was on of may of the young photographers who were involved in the provoke magazine and in the short video he suggests that young people i this time had the motivation to express themselves and that they were inspired by the feelings of rebellion to produce radical photography which allowed them to express themselves. When Provoke came to an end, Moriyama ould not settle with taken normal photography an this is were he continued his social rebellion through photography and produced his photobook ‘Farewell Photography’ where he questioned every little thing about photography as he was “excessively caught up in a desire to deconstruct photogrpahy”.

When looking at photographers such as Daido Moriyama, Takuma Nakihara and Yutaka Takanashi words such as radical, expression, unpredictable, spontaneous, grainy, blurred, unique, individual, protest and rebellious come to mind. These Japanese photographers which used social rebellion as inspiration and motivation for their photography capture extremely unique images which break the traditional boundaries of photography, but i think that there is a need for photographers who want to get there message across to break the rules and produce pieces which are different and radical as this catches the eye of the audience, the viewer, the political protests. To me, to provoke means to initiate question and debate of the meaning of something. And that is exactly what the provoke photographers where doing, they were questioning the boundaries of photography and therefore making others also question it. I think that once a subject is brought into the eyes of individuals as being question by one it has the domino effect to provoke offers the also question this and what the Japanese provoke photographers have caused is a longitudinal debate of the possibilities of photographers.