Nearly a minute has passed yet the sea in front of us remains still, save for a ring-shaped life preserver bobbing upon its surface. Inside it is a mesh net, known as a sukari, filled with red, yellow ...

It may not be long before we cease to see Japan's traditional female free divers, known as Ama, in the flesh. In Toba city, Ama forage for seafood like abalone, sea urchin and lobster, but their ...

In a coastal hut in Mie Prefecture, a charcoal fire burns at the center as ama — "sea woman" in Japanese, who make a living by free-diving for seafood — warm their hands, or grill fresh catch for ...

Add articles to your saved list and come back to them any time. The elderly women sit in a semicircle by a smouldering fire, warming up after diving for shellfish delicacies in the cool waters off the ...

SHIMA, Japan (AFP) – Mieko Kitai takes a huge gulp of air as she surfaces from the clear, blue waters of Japan's Pacific coast with a large abalone in her hand. Now in her 70s, the dive -- with ...

Bisson at work in Japan. Photo of a displayed image by Matt Coker To say the subject of Devyn Bisson’s sophomore project as a filmmaker is unexpected would be an understatement. While in Japan, the ...

Bearing torches that lit up the night as they swam out into the ocean, Japan's storied "ama" prayed for an abundant catch in a ceremony held by these female free divers for decades. This year, however ...

Photographer Nina Poppe had been interested in researching a project about female niche communities when a friend told her about the Ama, a group of Japanese women who dive for abalone, the highly ...

The Ama are female freedivers who have gathered pearls, lobsters and shellfish in Japan's coastal waters for millennia, and who feature heavily in local folklore. There were some 6,000 of these "women ...