In Fukushima Prefecture, in an area near the wrecked nuclear power plant, a samurai training and ritual, the Soma Nomaoi, has existed for over 800 years: hundreds of local men and women on horseback in traditional armour compete to show their strength, cunning and prowess. Commissioned by the Soma family, one of the oldest samurai families in Japan, Everett Kennedy Brown made quiet portraits with the wet-plate technique that link past and present. The forty-four portraits of the first half each required a ten-second exposure, and only one image was made of each subject, who appear in their hereditary samurai dress as a poetic tribute to the past. All of them survived the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear accident that devastated their community, and the images become a record of their tenacity in keeping the tradition alive in hard times. In contrast, the vibrant second half, in digital photography, offers crisp, finely detailed and colourful interpretations of the riders' costumes, which have a fetish-like quality. Together the two approaches convey how two aesthetic traditions of Japan, wabi-sabi and hare, the sacred, live on in Japanese culture.