Morinaga was born in Nagasaki Prefecture, 1937. Graduated with a degree in Nihon University in 1960. 1962/63 he was W. Eugene Smith’s assistant, in Tokyo. Morinaga was fascinated by the relationship between an object and the photographic representation of that same object. He wondered whether beautiful images produced beautiful photographs and ugly images produced ugly photographs. Looking for the answer to his question, he began taking pictures of rotting rivers, with his nose pinched close, in Tokyo in the sixties. Due to the developing industries, the river's water level decreased and the rivers decayed. Time has since passed, and the photographed objects in "River" no longer exist, the relationship between object and photo has thus been lost.

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