Magnum Editions: The Golden Rock. Burma, 1978

Hiroji Kubota has long been documenting the contradictions at play in East Asia, where traditional societies and ways of life exist side by side with, or at times give way to, new technologies, mass-manufacturing and consumerism, on a scale that is nothing less than a revolution. Pictured here, Buddhist monks gather at the holy place of the Golden Rock at Shwe Pyi Daw.

Kubota came to know René Burri, Burt Glinn and Elliott Erwitt during a visit by Magnum members to Japan in 1961. He would go on to become a Magnum associate in 1971.