行走西藏,寻访香格里拉,探索失落的茶马古道

行走西藏,寻访香格里拉,探索失落的茶马古道  

It takes a lot of work to capture a good photo. Last month
Michael Yamashita was sitting in a Hong Kong bookstore
clicking through slides of pictures from his new book
Shangri-La: Along the Tea Road to Lhasa
a five-year project that documents the inparable beauty and changing face of Tibet.
He arrived at a photo of several young men dressed in leather aprons and heavy mittens
with plastic covers on their shoes
making their way down an empty road high on the Tibetan plateau. One of them 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 backwards
" said Yamashita. "And it was raining."
“得到这张照是完美的，一个家伙在地上，另一个在站起来，其他人站着，我必须得向后走半英里，” Yamashita说。“当时还在下雨。”
Later
I asked him how far he has gone to get a single shot. "I wouldn't risk my life
but it's all about getting the picture
" he said. "You'll do what you have to do."
Shangri-La is one of those projects. Yamashita has been travelling to Tibet for 15 years and the photos in the book were taken over a period of five years.
Like all of his projects
this one began with research. "I've read just about every book that was ever published on Tibet
" says Yamashita. "We don't have time to mess around. There's nothing left to chance – we go at the right time to get the right people in the right pictures."
More than landscapes
though
it's the human geography that fascinates Yamashita. In Jiuzhaigou
for example
tea is grown
harvested
dried and hand-processed into bricks. "This is why I'm drawn back to China again and again – the fashion may have changed – the cities certainly have – but certain practices are exactly the same as they've been for centuries."