Tastemaker: Michael Yamashita, photographer
Photographer Michael Yamashita is chronicling Tibet's uniqueness before it vanishes, writes Christopher DeWolf
It takes a lot of work to capture a good photo. Michael Yamashita was sitting at Kelly & Walsh bookstore in Pacific Place recently, clicking through slides of pictures from his new book, Shangri-La: Along the Tea Road to Lhasa, a five-year project that documents the incomparable beauty and changing face of Tibet.
He paused at a photo of several young men dressed in leather aprons, heavy mittens, plastic covers on their shoes, making their way down an empty road high on the Tibetan plateau. One was lying prostrate on the ground, another rising to his feet, others walking forward. They were pilgrims making an arduous month-long journey to Lhasa.
"To get this frame that's perfect, with one guy on the ground, another rising, other standing, I must have had to walk half a mile backward," Yamashita says. "And it was raining."
Later, asked how far he has gone to get a single shot, he said: "I wouldn't risk my life, but it's all about getting the picture. You'll do what you have to do."
Yamashita is no stranger to legwork. In 30 years of taking photos for National Geographic, the American-born photographer has retraced the footsteps of Marco Polo, Ming dynasty explorer Zheng He and the Japanese poet Matsuo Basho. His travels have taken him to nearly every corner of Asia; his photos have spanned the evolution from film to digital.
Now he is one of the last remaining photojournalists from an era when photographers commanded big budgets for ambitious assignments. "I'm the last of a breed," he says.