'Offerings to the unknown dead, Kyoto' [Toshi Satow offering a candle]. Taken for a series on Japan for 'Life'

The successful publication of Brake’s 'Monsoon' led to several more large assignments for Life magazine in the 1960s – including one on the Asian film industry, and another for a special issue on Japan before the 1964 Tokyo Olympics.

Brake was never actually on Life’s staff, but felt he was considered ‘part of the family’: ‘If you did a good job for Life, it simply kept on snowballing and you were given even more of a free hand all the time.’

For the Japan assignment, this freedom was so great that his brief was simply to get the ‘feeling’ of the country.