Many Iowans only know the name Marco Polo from a kids’ swimming pool game, but a guest lecturer who’ll be in central Iowa tomorrow has walked in the famed traveler’s footsteps — across 12 countries.
Mike Yamashita is a National Geographic photographer and he’ll share how he documented Polo’s fascinating, long journey.
“You know, I’m the one and only person who has done the entire Marco Polo route, both land and sea,” Yamashita says.
Polo was a Venetian merchant, explorer and writer whose travels through Asia along the Silk Road lasted from the year 1271 to 1295. It took Yamashita the better part of three years, through terrain that was challenging both physically and politically.
“The trip over goes through some very difficult places, like Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan, and I was between those wars,” Yamashita says. “I was probably the only Westerner to travel through those three countries, but we got access because I worked for National Geographic.”
Yamashita is delivering a talk tomorrow night called, “East Meets West: In the Footsteps of Marco Polo” as part of the Explorers Series at the Des Moines Civic Center. He’ll be showing a collection of about a hundred of his photographs on the big screen, detailing his recreation of Polo’s unprecedented journey.
“I was on it for about three years, shooting in a dozen countries,” Yamashita says, “and what I’m going to show is all these photographs from many of things that Marco Polo described, and I was able to find examples.”
Along with two documentary feature films, Yamashita has published 16 books in multiple languages, including his latest, “Shangri-La.” Technology, including social media and cell phones, has allowed a wide segment of our population to become amateur photographers, which irks professional photographers like Yamashita, who has decades of experience.
“Yeah, it’s the worst time probably for photography, and yet it’s the best, in not only the ease of taking pictures, but the ease of showing them has never been better,” Yamashita says. “It’s hurt the industry in that — who needs a photographer, if everybody has a cell phone and is taking pictures?”
In addition to his work throughout Asia, which has included intensive concentrations in China, Japan, Korea, and India, his work has taken him to six continents. When Yamashita isn’t speaking or an assignment, he lives in rural New Jersey and is an active volunteer firefighter.
Hear Matt Kelley’s full interview with Mike Yamashita below: