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Mike Yamashita

Mike Yamashita has combined his dual passions of photography and travel for over 25 years, working most notably for the National Geographic. Specialising in Asia, he has covered Vietnam and the Mekong River, Marco Polo’s journey to China, the Great Wall, the DMZ between North and South Korea, as well as almost every aspect of Japanese culture from samurai to fish markets. His most recent story, on Zheng He, the legendary Ming Dynasty admiral and explorer, first appeared in the July 2005 issue of The National Geographic, and was released as a documentary feature film in 2006.  The film, The Ghost Fleet, won Best Historical Documentary at the 2006 New York International Film Festival. Yamashita’s book on the subject, Zheng He, was published by White Star in September 2006.

Yamashita’s prior book, Marco Polo: A Photographer’s Journey, sold over 200,000 copies worldwide in its initial printing and was re-released by Rizzoli in the fall of 2004.  Marco Polo is also the subject of his award-winning National Geographic Channel documentary, Marco Polo: The China Mystery Revealed, in which Yamashita retraces the 13th-century Venetian’s epic excursion to China.  His other books include In the Japanese Garden, Mekong: Mother of Waters, and most recently New York: Flying High, an aerial portrait of Manhattan and The Great Wall from Beginning to End.

A frequent lecturer and teacher at workshops around the world, Yamashita has received numerous industry awards, including from the National Press Photographers Association Pictures of the Year, the New York Art Directors Club, and the Asian-American Journalists Association.  He has had numerous major exhibits worldwide. When not traveling, Michael Yamashita lives with his family in rural New Jersey, where he maintains a studio and stock library, and is an active volunteer fireman. Mike and I have known each other for many years, initially through working on ‘week-in-the-life’ country projects published by our mutual friend Didier Millet.

MF: You’re one of the most prolific National Geographic photographers. How many stories have you done?

MY: Actually I’m working on my 29th story right now. I’ve been working here for 30 years, since 1979, when I did my first story in Japan. I’ve done countless books and other projects for NGS, but for the magazine, which is like the flagship, it’s the stories that count. I am in a very rarified group now. I can’t say there’s more than four of us that go back that many years. And there are no longer any staff — Bill Allard and others retired this year.

MF: So it’s been a pretty important relationship for you?

MY: Oh yeah. Working for the Geographic has always been one of the most, at least in this country, well let’s say it’s the best job in magazines that you can get. Because they’ve always been able to put a photographer in the field for longer to do definitive work on whatever your subject is. And that is the reason why these jobs are so attractive — they give you time and resources to do a good job. And mainly give you more time than anyone else does — and pay you for it!

MF: And not many magazines are doing that any more.

MY: Not any magazine is doing it any more. Only the Geographic. German GEO magazine over the years has done a few assignments, but a week or two is maybe typical — two weeks at most — for a travel magazine or a GEO type magazine. For your average shoot …. well, we went from four months a story in the old days to now very tight budgets and tight deadlines. I’m now averaging less than two months a story.

MF: This is the obvious question, of course: you’ve made a specialty of Asian stories. How and when did that come about?

MY: Well, in the beginning I worked in Africa, South America and all over Europe. But somewhere about ten years into my career, I thought, well, in this age of specialty it’s good to have an area of expertise. I’m third generation Japanese American, and I went to Japan right out of college basically to have a roots experience. This was my first experience of Asia, and though I found that I wasn’t particularly Japanese in my way of thinking (mine is very much American), from that grew this love of….. love of rice!

MF: So it was your grandparents who moved to America.

MY: Yes, my grandparents emigrated to the United States My father, however, was born in America but raised in Japan, so he was more Japanese than he was American. He spoke English as a second language.

MF: If we can go now to one of the longest stories that’s ever run — well, in my memory — on Marco Polo.

MY: Yes, that was maybe one of the last of the biggies. They sent me on it for two years, and they got a lot out of it, because we ended up doing a 28-page story on Iraq, and 82 pages of Marco Polo.

MF: When you say Iraq, that was like a spin-off?

MY: Yes, a spin-off story on Iraq because they really sent me to do Marco Polo, but because of the non-political angle the Iraqi government let me go everywhere I wanted, pretty much. It was the only big story shot on Iraq between the First Gulf War and the Second Gulf War.

MF: Now was that conceived as one long story, or…?

MY: It was a three-part series. Venice to China was the first one. The second was on China itself, and the third was his return trip. Actually we shot it in kind of reverse order —  China first as I recall. Everybody who’s ever done this story has tried to do it to China, but because of the political situation and crossing borders nobody ever actually made the entire trip. We were able pretty much to do that because all of the countries sort of lined up  during that period, which was 1999 through to 2001. We were able to get in, so I got to do Iraq, which was a surprise, also Afghanistan, which even before 9/11 was dicey but that worked out. And at the time, the toughest place, maybe tougher than either of those two, was Iran because there was a tremendous anti-American bias at the time. Anyway, we made it to all those places. And part of it is because this was the Geographic. Many countries think the Geographic is not politically minded, even though with a lot of the stories, especially recent ones, you could argue the point. Anyway, it has the reputation of being an educational magazine that covers the world and at least does it in a fair way, so it’s for this reason that we’re able to get that kind of access.

MF: Then, was Marco Polo conceived as three stories?

MY: No, we started out with my story idea and proposal, which was inspired by the head of the Chinese department at the British Library, Frances Wood, who wrote a book called “Did Marco Polo Go To China?”, back in the mid nineties. I read that book and thought, how can people be questioning at this point whether he actually made the trip? In fact, we went to meet her. Again, talk about thorough research, we actually started our trip in London to see Frances and hear her argument about why she thought that Marco Polo didn’t make it to China. So I proposed to use this book as a guide to see how accurate it really was. And nobody had done that before, either, because most books about Marco Polo were written from somebody’s desk like at the British Library. Anyway, the premise was go and see if Marco Polo actually made it to China or not. So, we applied to all those countries along the route and got in, but in various orders, because you couldn’t cross many of the land borders, so you had to go to Jordan in order to go to Iraq, and from Iraq you couldn’t go to Iran, so you then flew to Istanbul, and from Istanbul you went into Iran, but then you couldn’t cross into Afghanistan, so you went to Moscow, and from Moscow you flew to Kazakhstan and from Kazakhstan you flew to Tajikistan, and there you waited for Mahsood’s people — he was the leader of the Northern Alliance, who was at the time fighting the Taliban and holding them at bay. And so we met his representatives in New York and they put us in touch with the great general himself and we waited for his military people to catch up to us in Tajikistan. We got into Afghanistan in one of his helicopters, flying right low to the ground because, you know, Pakistani radar and Pakistani jets were out there trying to take him out. And that’s the way I got all those good aerials! But anyway, this is not a typical story. It took some unusual logistics to do it. But again, that’s the beauty of working for the Geographic. They support you in every way to do what for most other magazines would be pretty impossible.

MF: Well, that leads me to the next question, which is that most of your work, more than most other people I know who shoot for National Geographic, is on large-scale and logistically heavy assignments.

MY: It’s funny how you get into a particular type of shooting. I don’t think anybody starts out as a specialist in anything. When I started out as a young photographer, I just wanted to see the world, but as you get more mature I would say that you start gravitating to  those stories and that part of the world where you feel the most comfortable, and in my case it was always Asia. Partly being of Asian descent, I just feel comfortable and feel best when I’m working there!

MF: The magazine famously provides considerable backup and support for photographers. Now, in planning a story how does that work split between your editors and you? Who does what?

MY: First of all, just getting a proposal like this passed is a major procedure. I would say that 50 percent of the stories come from photographers’ ideas. Really, as high as 50 percent. So, starting right from the beginning, you’re coming in with a story idea, you flesh it out, which in my case meant I read Frances Wood’s book and proposed to follow the route. Here are all the places Marco Polo goes, and in so doing you’re writing basically a shoot list because this is a visual magazine, so you have to give them an idea, they have to be able to imagine what the pictures are going to look like. Basically, I’m making a list of picture possibilities and writing them into my proposal so that it reads visually and everyone can see what the story’s going to be about. So this is the proposal stage, and once the proposal’s passed, then comes the real research where you start logistically to figure out how this is going to happen, how much it’s going to cost, and how much time you think it’s going to take. From the magazine’s side, they’re figuring out how many pages they think it’s worth, at least from the beginning, so that they can plan two years’ hence what story mix they’re going to have. Of course, no-one could have predicted that this one was going to be as big as it turned out, and part of it also was because after I’d finished the first two sections, from Venice to China and then in China, we said ‘how can we leave him in China?’. People have attempted to do Venice to China, people have probably followed his route in China, but nobody has followed his route from China all the way back to Venice, which is essentially the Sea Silk Road. Originally the idea was to get them to do two sections, but then we had a good set of pictures so we argued to do the Sea Silk Road and take him right back.

MF: So this was a second proposal based on the success of the material that you’d shot?

MY: That’s right. Between trips we’re coming back and showing pictures to the editors. There are checks and balances now which weren’t in place years ago when I started. When you’d finished a story you’d come back in and say OK, we’ve got the pictures, and you’d just show them. There were no deadlines, there were no budgets even. But over the years, obviously, things have changed. Now we have half-way shows, and after every trip you sit down with your picture editor. Again, this is something very unusual; I know no other magazine that does this, and no other client that does it — the photographer’s viewpoint is so valued that they bring you down to Washington, where you sit for a week with your picture editor together choosing the photographs. They all go into a big tray and you put on a show.

MF: You’ve had a long relationship with one particular editor.

MY: They team you up with people who have an interest in your story or part of the world. For example, Elisabeth Krist I’ve worked with fairly constantly, as well as Susan Welchman.

MF: I was thinking of Susan in particular. How many stories have you done together?

MY: I think I’ve done about half, at least 16 stories, with her. It just worked out that way. We sort of clicked. Other photographers work with other editors in their specialty; one or two of the picture editors concentrate on natural history and science, so those people will link up with the wildlife guys and the underwater guys. Because you need to spend so much time together also, basically it’s a communication business and you have to get along. Verbally as well as visually you have to be able to story — we’re storytellers. Yes, there’s a sort of symbiotic relationship where you’re depending on your picture editor, because it’s you and he or she choosing these pictures.

MF: But that’s just the first step in editing, yes?

MY: Right. We’ve got this package of pictures and we’re telling our story to other groups of editors — there are people from layout, people from the editorial side, the writers, as well as my bosses, the visual people. We’re all sitting in a room, and the editor-in-chief has the button to change the picture coming up. Of course, in the old days it was slides and now it’s digital — mostly digital, though there are some guys who still shoot film. But anyway, the point is that the change button is not in your hands. You have to really know your subject and your pictures really have to tell the tale. As they come up, you give brief captions to them, and bang, there’s the next picture already. The editor-in-chief might linger over it if he likes it, or he might go really quickly if he doesn’t. Of course, you’re confident because you’ve spent the time, and that’s what it’s all about. You know if you have a good story or not, otherwise you’re in trouble. If you don’t have the goods, then you’re spinning wheels up there, because you’ve got quite an audience of very serious people looking at your pictures. And they see a lot of photography, as you can imagine. Their whole job is this. Editors go from show to show, basically.

MF: Just going back to the logistical planning, a lot of photographers — I mean, those who still are shooting stories — generally do it themselves. They have to do it themselves. That’s been my experience, because I went from Time-Life to the Smithsonian, and that was staffed by Lifers, and always the ethos there was ‘here’s the story, go away, come back when you’ve got the pictures and don’t bother us about it!’ But working for National Geographic you’re fortunate in having this organization that will do things for you.

MY: It depends, though, very much on the picture editor. There are some who are very research-oriented, and because they like to do the research they’re going to be feeding you information all the time, and there are others who could care less — and are indeed, as you described, saying ‘well, show me the pictures when you come back’! It depends who your picture editor is.

MF: So once you’ve done the research, it’s a matter of calling people, making arrangements, booking flights, doing all the on-the-ground stuff. How do you like to work this?

MY: Of course, at the Geographic it’s a sort of luxury because there’s a travel department, and there’s a medical department — you tell them the countries you’re going to and they give you a medical kit with everything in it: ‘oh, you need this shot, you need this malaria stuff…’. And then you can even go to the Equipment Room and get whatever you need. They expect photographers to supply a certain amount of equipment themselves, say from 16mm on up to 300mm, but anything after that, like if you need long glass, 400mm and above, or special lighting equipment, or a kayak, or whatever. So again, this is why everyone wants a crack at the Geographic because they’ve had this history of putting photography on the highest pedestal. With all due respect to the writers, it’s really about the photography. They go to their utmost to support the photographers as well as listen to what they have to say when they come back — the photographers spend more time in the field than anybody and therefore become the best source of information, even more than the writers, because they spend more time out there.

MF: Talking of time, how do you estimate the time you allocate to a story?

MY: Well, in the old days, you simply had more time. On one of these long-distance stories covering a lot of mileage, if I can get, say, two nights in a place before moving on, I think that’s great. Before, we used to budget our film and everything by the number of days. 10 rolls a day would be a typical average, and if you were going to be out 60 days, then you’d carry 600 rolls.

MF: But you, I remember from more than one occasion, shoot rather more than most of us, right?

MY: It’s funny that people were stunned by the number of rolls, but I think the average per story was something like 800 rolls, and I would come in maybe on the high side of that. But now, shooting digitally — and I never skimped on film — I’m shooting twice as much. And everybody is. There’s the fact that it’s free, of course, but everyone’s shooting more because the editing process has speeded up. Ed Kashi has a pretty famous story — I think it was on the Kurds — and they took all of his still pictures and weaved it together as a moving video, stopping every once in a while when he had a great frame. You know how it is when you spin the wheel on the back of your camera in order to look at pictures quickly and the way they move across looks like a movie, right? Or on your computer, when you’re scrolling really fast, it has a stuttering movie-like effect.

MF: Like a flipbook?

MY: Yes, exactly. I don’t know if you could call it a film, but look at Brian Storm’s MediaStorm site. It should still be there. It’s just an example of everyone shooting so much that you’re not missing a moment.

MF: Well, there must be a price to pay for that when you get back home.

MY: Yes, you’re right. I almost ran out of storage on this last story I’ve been working on in western China. It’s been so spectacular that I went through six hard drives. Normally I save three times, but I had to start editing in the field so that I could save it just twice, onto two 360GB and four 160GB drives.

MF: And when you get back home to the office, what happens then?

MY: There’s a considerable time taken to download, but the editing, I must say, is really fast. Most recently I edited 13,000 frames, with my editor, in about six hours.

MF: Is that because you’re familiar with what you’ve got?

MY: Well, we’re choosing pictures from pretty much every situation, but you know where the nuggets are. Good pictures are usually the product of working a situation, and so you have that situation in front of you, and let’s say you’re there for an hour while there’s an action happening in front of you. I’m shooting away at this situation, but in my mind’s eye I’m already making decisions about where I’m focusing on a particular action, or fiddling around with the light maybe, or moving around it in various ways, but still I have an image in my mind of what I want, and that takes a lot of the guesswork out of it. Occasionally you get lucky and you grab a single frame that really works, but mainly I know what I want and work hard to get it.

Let’s take an example from Marco Polo. I’m on the Silk Road, so I need a picture of making silk. There are three procedures that they go through. The first is the soaking of silkworms, then they take a little of the thread and wind it onto the spindle, then after it’s wound on to the spindles basically it’s a storage thing. So, I’m sizing this up. We’re never going to run more than one or two frames on this. Whatever it is, it has to have it all there information-wise, and it has to be interesting from an artistic point of view because you want to grab someone’s attention to look at it, and look at it in detail. Here, I’m following each one until I think I have something. You’re working the light and the composition, but you’re always hoping for something to happen — that’s the wonderful thing about photography, this serendipity that comes in and makes the frame. So in one case I’m shooting this woman and she’s winding this silk onto the spindle. Then what happens? Her grandson walks into the frame and starts to help here, and suddenly, bango, I have a picture of something but more than just the act of putting silk threads on a spindle. I have this other element where the kid comes in and it becomes a whole different photograph. I have this human element that’s added something to what would otherwise have been just a demonstration or a document.

I have another example that I use, in that same village, where I’m shooting a falconer. Now falcons are a big deal, because falconry is the sport of the Kublai Khan, and in the end that’s who Marco Polo is working for, so everything that the Mongols like is also something he talks about. So I know I have to have a picture of falconry. I’m shooting everything to do with falconry — so the guy’s throwing the bird in the air, admiring it, petting it and just all kind of portraits of him and the bird. Then here’s the same situation as before. There’s this kid who happens to be half-naked and walks into the back of the frame, and click, I get this picture. It’s elevated by the serendipity — something happened while I was in the process, and I was there to witness it and put it on film. Not manipulated at all, not a set up, I couldn’t even have imagined it, and then it happens. As we all experience, one of the things that about photography that’s hard to explain, this happens on a regular basis, don’t you think?

MF: Well, you certainly need luck.

MY: Yes, photographer’s luck is what I call it!

MF: But also, you allow things the chance to happen, by doing all your due diligence first, right?

MY: Yes, I also like to say that you’re always on a hunt. It’s not a random process. You’re not just traveling along the Silk Road and hoping that you’ll see something to make a picture of. Ninety percent of the time you are hunting for something. So I am in this village because I know they make silk here, and I’m in this same village because I know there’s a falconer, and I’m going to find him because someone has told me in my research. In every village I’m arriving in, of course, I’m asking these same questions. These are remote places, but I know there are these photo opportunities, pictures on my shoot list. So it’s like a hunt. My shoot list, of course, is made up of elements from Marco Polo’s book. He writes about this in this place, this happening here, and therefore I’m going to go and find it.

Let me finally just mention one situation that comes up often. This is in Venice for the Marco Polo story. Now Venice has been photographed a billion times before by a billion tourists, and because it is so well known, and every angle of it is so well known, the biggest challenge in a place like this is to come up with different photographs that have that impact that’s going to make people stop and stare at it. That will stop them from page-flipping. That for me is the criterion for double-trucks — double-page spreads - in the Geographic. They’re there to stop people from flipping the pages in a magazine that has a lot of photographs that want to grab your attention. So, I’m in Venice, and I’m analysing it from this point of view. There are two columns on Saint Mark’s Square that were among the few things that were actually there when Marco Polo left on his trip. Those were built in the tenth century, he left in the thirteenth century, so you know that’s something he would have seen. Obviously I have to get a good picture of it. Now, I hear that there’s this big cruise ship coming into town on September 6th. Knowing that, I was there on September 6th to photograph the biggest cruise ship going through the Grand Canal — in order that I could put it in the background behind the two columns and make a very spectacular picture that people were going to want to look at. But it took that kind of thinking and planning to make it happen. Not that I went specially to Venice to shoot just that, but I scheduled my trip around the arrival of that ship. I think it’s a good illustration of the kind of approach we take on Geographic stories like this.

MF: Yes, and here’s the very picture below. Mike, thanks for that insider’s look at Geographic assignments.

Tags: China, Gulf War, Iraq, Marco Polo, National Geographic, Sea Silk Road, Venice