The Haunting Beauty of the Reconsecration of Shinto Shrines
Jessica Leigh Hester
Photographer Yukihito Masuura spent more than a decade documenting rituals that connect past and present.
![[Image: IZU-008_n.jpg]](https://assets.atlasobscura.com/media/W1siZiIsInVwbG9hZHMvYXNzZXRzLzQ1YTQ4MmJkOGY3MDUxMWNlYl9JWlUtMDA4X24uanBnIl0sWyJwIiwiY29udmVydCIsIiJdLFsicCIsImNvbnZlcnQiLCItcXVhbGl0eSA4MSAtYXV0by1vcmllbnQiXSxbInAiLCJ0aHVtYiIsIjEyODB4PiJdXQ/IZU-008_n.jpg)
Jessica Leigh Hester
Photographer Yukihito Masuura spent more than a decade documenting rituals that connect past and present.
Quote:Across the series, the themes of change and continuity sit alongside each other. They’re especially clear in a photograph printed as a panorama on washi paper. The shrine, in the background, is in crisp focus, while the procession in the foreground is blurry, almost ghostly. It seems to suggest that the priests and the tradition simultaneously stretch into the past and wrap toward the future.
'Historically, we may regard materialism as a system of dogma set up to combat orthodox dogma...Accordingly we find that, as ancient orthodoxies disintegrate, materialism more and more gives way to scepticism.'
- Bertrand Russell
- Bertrand Russell
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