Peter Morton, People of Japan (PEOPLE 2020)

I was fortunate to be able to travel to Japan in 2019 and experience the varying cultures that exists in this country of around 125 million. The photos here show a group of youths enjoying themselves at the annual Sapporo food fair – their hair coloured for the occasion; we see a flautist and his son, who have practised for months, and dress in traditional garb in a parade of thousands at the Takayama religious festival. At a back street in Kyoto two old friends share dinner in an annexe to a restaurant and finally a young girl embraces the magic of a fountain that interplays with music at a large shopping mall.

Images have been resized for web display, which may cause some loss of image quality. Note: Original high-resolution images are used for judging.