/ 2025 / Press / Performing Arts

• Prize
  Honorable Mention
• Photographer
  Tetsuya Okubo, Japan
• Date of Photograph
  2025/07/06

In the wake of the 2024 Noto Peninsula earthquake, the Abare Festival returned with undiminished force and devotion.

Captured in the sacred moment of purification, this image shows men casting a burning mikoshi into the Kannoji River, where fire from towering torches rains down. This fierce ritual of water and flame marks the final cleansing before entering the shrine, a symbolic rebirth through trial.

Set in Ishikawa, Japan, the scene embodies both centuries-old tradition and the unbroken spirit of a region rising from disaster.