We often give you great reasons to visit Japan. The scenery. The lights. The weirdness. But for those of you who still aren’t convinced, here’s yet another brilliant excuse to visit the Land of the Rising Sun. Fireflies!

Every summer, for very short periods, these magical bugs turn forests in Japan into beautiful stages for their ephemeral light shows while trying to attract a mate. And every summer, in the early evening, photographers set out to snap these shows in beautifully evocative photographs. Fireflies are often difficult to find because they don’t like other forms of light (the divas), so you need to be good at hide and seek as well as a skillful photographer if you want to capture their amazing displays for yourself. Because the flash from fireflies is brief and intermittent, photographers often use long exposure shots taken from a tripod in order to capture the sorts of mesmerizing pictures that you can see below. (h/t: spoon&tomago)

Image credits: Yu Hashimoto

Image credits: Hiroyuki Shinohara

Image credits: Yume Cyan

Image credits: hm777

Image credits: Nomiyama Kei

Image credits: Asuka I

Image credits: fumial

Image credits: hm777

Image credits: Daisuke Aochi

Image credits: zabby

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