Japanese traditional visiting deity "Namahage" march through the streets during the "Oga no Namahage" in a blizzard in Oga City, Akita Prefecture, Japan on December 31,2021. This folk-cultural event has a long history of over several hundred years. Each New Year’s Eve, men from each village dressed as Namahage deities visit homes in the district to admonish laziness, also to bring happiness, rich harvests and products from the mountains and oceans for the coming year. In 2018, Oga no Namahage was designated as a UNESCO intangible cultural heritage.
Satoshi Takahashi is a Japanese photojournalist. He was born in 1981 in Akita, Japan. Satoshi began his career as a freelance photojournalist in Cambodia since 2007. He had spent 11 years in the country covering social issues. In October 2018, Satoshi went back to Japan and currently he has been focusing on documenting stories of vanishing cultures in Akita prefecture concurrently with covering Cambodia. In March 2019, He was awarded the Domon Ken Award for his latest photo book "RESISTANCE" that is a compilation of his work in Cambodia.
