行走西藏,尋訪香格里拉,探索失落的茶馬古道
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 incomparable beauty and changing face of Tibet.
捕捉一張好照片需要大量的工作。上個月，Michael Yamashita坐在香港的書店裏，點擊着他的新書《尋訪香格里拉：探索失落的茶馬古道》裏的幻燈照，一個的五年的課題，記錄了西藏無與倫比的美麗和不斷改變的面貌。
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.
他來到一張照片前：幾個年輕人穿着皮革圍裙戴着沉重的連指手套並用塑料套在他們的鞋子上，在青藏高原空曠的道路上行走。其中一個匍匐着躺在地上，另一個正站起來，其他人在向前走。他們是用長達一個月的時間艱難前往拉薩的朝聖者。"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."
“得到這張照是完美的，一個傢伙在地上，另一個在站起來，其他人站着，我必須得向後走半英里，” Yamashita說。“當時還在下雨。”
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."
後來，我問他要走多遠纔能有一次攝影。“我不會冒着生命危險，但都是關於得到照片，”他說。“你會去做你不得不做的事情。”
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.
香格里拉是其中一個課題。Yamashita已經在西藏旅行了15年，書中這些照片是超過五年時間拍攝的。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."
像所有的課題一樣，這個也從研究開始。“我只是已經讀過出版過的每一本關於西藏的書” Yamashita說。“我們沒有時間浪費。天上不會掉餡餅——我們走在恰當的時間把恰好的人記錄在正好的照片裏。”
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."
但不只是風景，令Yamashita着迷也有人文地理。例如，在九寨溝茶葉生長、收穫、烘乾並且手工加工成磚塊。“這就是爲什麼我一次次被吸引回到中國——方式可能已經改變——城市當然有，但某些習慣完全相同因爲他們已經存在了幾個世紀。”
