Yamashita Photo

[Ariel Wascom]

Knownfor sharing his expertise and adventures as a teacher and lecturer, Yamashita has appeared as a TedX Speaker and is a sought-after lecturer and instructor at photo workshops, universities and conferences across the globe.

He has won a host of industry awards, including those from the prestigious Pictures of the Year competition, Photo District News, the New York Art Directors Club, and the Asian American Journalists Association. His most recent exhibits include installations in Singapore, Hong Kong, Taipei and Tokyo, as well as in Pisa, Italy, Frankfurt, Germany, The Carter Center in Atlanta, Los Angeles County Museum and the National Gallery in Washington DC.

Along with two documentary feature films, both inspired by his extensive coverage of Marco Polo and Zheng He, Yamashita has produced 16 books, on topics as diverse as Japanese gardens, the Mekong River, the Great Wall and Tibet.

Known for sharing his expertise and adventures as a teacher and lecturer, Yamashita has appeared as a TedX Speaker at his alma mater, Wesleyan University, and is a sought-after lecturer and instructor at photo workshops, universities and conferences across the globe.

Along with two documentary feature films, both inspired by his extensive coverage of Marco Polo and Zheng He, and Yamashita has produced 16 books, on topics as diverse as Japanese gardens to Shangri-la.

Born in 1949 in San Francisco, California, and raised in Montclair, New Jersey. Yamashita graduated from Montclair Academy in 1967.[2] He graduated from Wesleyan University with a degree in Asian studies.

After college in 1971, he traveled to Japan to teach English. After joining a photo club to work on his Japanese,[3] he was inspired to pursue photography professionally. After living and shooting throughout Asia for seven years, he returned to the US where he started working for the National Geographic in 1979, photographing in various countries.

One of the most influential photographers of our time, Michael Yamashita has spent much of his near-five-decade-long career traveling Asia, capturing truly extraordinary images that distill the essence of this vast, diverse continent.

Born in San Francisco in 1949 and raised in Montclair, New Jersey, Yamashita, a third-generation Japanese American, harboured a deep interest in his heritage from an early age, which led him to pursue an Asian Studies degree at Wesleyan University in Connecticut.

His journey into photography was serendipitous; after graduating he embarked on a trip to Japan in search of his roots and acquired a camera to document his experiences, a decision that would alter the course of his life. Despite, at the time harbouring no particular passion for photography, Yamashita found himself immediately enamored with the process. He joined a camera club, wanting to meet as many photographers as possible in order to develop his skills and explore his passion, and, as he improved and further explored Japan, began dreaming about what it would be like to shoot professionally for National Geographic.

He has published sixteen books, exhibited extensively across the globe, and received a myriad of prestigious industry awards and accolades. Beyond his accomplishments, Yamashita has become a sought-after teacher and lecturer, conducting workshops and lectures at universities and appearing as a TEDx Speaker. Ever generous with guidance and advice, he is eager to assist emerging practitioners:

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The choice to create an image becomes a collective archive: we can feel the rapid heartbeat of a city scrolling through angles of the same moment channeled through multiple screens; changing by the millisecond it takes to create a personal depiction: I am here, and also I am amongst. We document history as we live through it.

Yuma Yamashita focuses on this unknown with his camera lens: his work juxtaposes people, for scale, alongside the Japanese metropolis. The co-founder of Inspiration Cult Magazine and Gallery has a continuous stream of photographs that feed an ever-growing collection of moments, but has his roots firmly planted in tradition.

After lunch we walked to a shrine in the middle of the city. The space is a testament to our conversation: that amid the chaos of existence and the impermanence of things, we can choose to make our surroundings, and the present moment, sacred. At the entrance, there was a moment of silence. We scooped up water from a fountain with wooden tools to wash our hands before crossing the threshold.

Michael Yamashita, a far-east specialist, has been making pictures for National Geographic for over 40 years, and up until 2008, he was the only regularly contributing photographer of color. In addition to over 30 Natgeo magazine assignments over the years, Michael has sold stock, lectured, given workshops, and has made 16 books. In April of last year, Michael started selling his photography as NFTs and is currently listed on Opensea.com as #25 in all-time sales for photography. As someone with such a storied career that has found great success in NFTs, I reached out for an interview.

A Photo Editor (APE) is edited by Rob Haggart, the former Director of Photography for Men's Journal and Outside Magazine. Contributors include fine art photographer Jonathan Blaustein (@jblauphoto), Creative Director Heidi Volpe, photography consultant Suzanne Sease and Executive Producer Craig Oppenheimer of Wonderful Machine.

These photos capture everyday events familiar to all - cars driving past giraffes at a safari park, elementary school kids walking back to school from a fieldtrip in single file, a couple on a rental boat, a bridge about to sink in the swelled waters of a river, a moat covered in flower petals, high school students throwing rocks into a river, a desolate fishing pond, dried reeds along a riverbank and so on and so forth. Each one grabbed my attention for a moment and, as I took note, they became my memories.

For me, the emotion is always in the eyes. That's the single most important element to capture in a portrait. Your average person will smile, because a smile is what is expected - everybody's putting their best face forward by smiling for the camera. But it's only when they drop that smile that you get serious and you start getting serious pictures. You have to invest the time with your subject to get the emotion in the eyes. The eyes are the soul of a person.

On my camera, I keep the Eye Autofocus function on constantly so that no matter where my subject is moving, wherever they are in the frame, their eyes are in perfect focus every time. Those eyes, and the emotion behind them, are going to be razor sharp. Another setting that gives me an edge is continuous autofocus, instead of single autofocus, because again you never know where your subject may be moving especially when you're using these really fast Sony lenses. 1.4 depth of field is very shallow, so you need to be able to change that focus quickly and the only way you'll be able to do that is with continuous autofocus.

Firstly, it has super accurate focusing. With so many more focus points, I can put all my trust in the camera - I have pretty much everything on automatic, from autofocus to auto exposure. When I let the camera do the work, I can concentrate on the subject, and that's the way I like to work. I think professionals want the simplest and best gear that lets them just focus on the subject.

The 'R' in the a7R III stands for resolution, and if you've seen any of my exhibitions, you know I love big prints. I don't know a photographer who doesn't like to see their work in as large a scale as possible! And with portraits, the impact is different when you blow it up much larger than a normal size. With this camera, you see in amazing detail. It's not just that the eyes are incredibly sharp - you can see every thread of hair, every eyelash, and of course every defect or imperfection in a person's face. You don't miss a thing, it's pretty incredible.

In sub-zero temperatures, batteries can consume power very quickly. It's been very cold here in Ladakh, but with the new batteries on the a7R III, you can basically shoot all day without changing them. That's some amazing stamina. When you have good gear like that, it makes you more confident and it takes some pressure off when you're in the field.

As a photographer, I like to hear the 'click' sounds of the shutter. But when you're shooting portraits, the subject could be waiting for the click of the shutter, or performing for the camera, so it's better that they don't know when you're shooting. I like using the silent shooting feature for this, and I keep it on one of my custom buttons to hit on or off all the time. The silence is a great advantage for portrait shoots.

My favourite lens for portraits is the Sony 85 1.4 G Master lens. It's super sharp, fast and has a great bokeh. For portraits where I'm shooting fairly long, I also use the 70-200 2.8 G Master lens. These are my main arsenal.

I almost always have the camera on the widest aperture possible for portraits. I'm not so interested in depth of field because the eyes are everything in a portrait, so the focus on the eyes is really all you need. I don't care if the ears or anything else may be slightly out of focus. I want the eyes, and I love shooting at 1.4, especially for that beautiful soft bokeh that is part of the lens' natural look.

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