Tibet: In Search of Shangri-La
Michael Yamashita’s Captivating New NFT Photography Series Provides a Rare Glimpse at the Buddhist Way of Life
A photographer’s journey into the mystical valley of Jiuzhaigou awakens a lifetime fascination with Gautama Buddha.
When Michael Yamashita made his first 4 day trek to the remote valley of Jiuzhaigou, he encountered not only breathtaking landscapes, but Tibetan Buddhist shrines and villages. Fascinated, he spent some time documenting what he saw, and the experience left him yearning for a deeper understanding of the spiritual practices of Tibetans.
In his stories for National Geographic, Yamashita has traced the footsteps of many men seeking treasure, trade, and knowledge of the Orient, including the great explorers Marco Polo and Zheng He.
But his journey into Tibet was different.
In this adventure, Yamashita would follow in the steps of those inspired by one who had shed all claims and titles in search of the truth. The Buddha.
Over 20 years of work have culminated in his latest NFT Collection, exclusively on Nifty Gateway, launching at 6:30 PM Eastern on January 27, 2022. Click the link below to view and participate in the drop. See the article below for information about the collection, Yamashita and his team’s bio, and his previous NFT releases.
Tibet: In Search of Shangri-La
Technical Details
Yamashita’s Four Seasons of Jiuzhaigou collection was one of the first to publish detailed metadata relating to each image. For Tibet: In Search of Shangri-La, Nifty Gateway worked closely with Yamashita’s team to pursue the same approach, codifying both technical and environmental traits into the metadata. Some new traits have been added, including the year the photo was taken, and if it were published in National Geographic (10) or Yamashita’s book Shangri-La: Along the Tea Road to Lhasa (36).
Since rarity was known prior to creation, the collection is minted in order of rarity. All of the photographs in the collection are stored on secondary backup via Pinata’s IPFS service on Yamashita’s website.
Bundles:
The bundled photographs in this collection are all dynamic NFTs. Each bundle is composed of 2–3 photographs related to each other, and will change to show each image over the course of a 24 hour period. The bundles will be sold via auction and will last just under 24 hours.
8 bundles with different themes will be auctioned, including: Clockwise Karma, Devil Dancing, Mani Stone Mantras, Minting Buddhas, Modern Nuns in Ancient Scripts, Prayers in The Wind, Shangri-La and Yak Butter Enlightenment. Click each link above to see the bundle teaser on Twitter.
Blind Mint:
There are 69 total photos available, 55 for the public and 14 for holders of Yamashita’s previous NFTs. Purchasing one enters buyers into a draw for a random photograph. If more people enter the drawing than photographs available, there will be a random drawing, and you will not be charged unless you have secured one. There will be a 90 minute window to participate, starting at 6:30pm EST.
The collection offers a comprehensive glimpse at life on the path to Shangri-La, from zealous worshippers performing Chak Tsal prostrations on a muddy street to bustling Tibetan cityscapes. The comprehensive collection of each photo contained in the Tibet collection can be viewed at the bottom of this spreadsheet on Yamashita’s website.
Allowlist:
If you held a MYEARTH, Four Seasons of Jiuzhaigou or a Yamashita GAN NFT, you qualified for one of the 14 allowlist spots. A private sale on Nifty Gateway for the blind mint price was set up for redemption. The NFTs received by Allowlist holders were randomly selected from the pool of 69 blind mints to ensure fairness for all involved. Due to the market mechanics of Nifty Gateway, these sales contributed to the secondary volume statistics for the collection.
Michael Yamashita
Creating 34 stories for National Geographic, 16 books and 2 documentary films over 40 years, Yamashita is one of photography’s top influencers. He has won a host of industry awards including the Pictures of the Year competition, Photo District News, the New York Art Directors Club, and the Asian American Journalists Association.
When not traveling, he can be found at his home/studio in rural New Jersey, where he is an active volunteer fireman.
Yamashita attended NFT NYC and Art Basel in Miami, and spent time networking with the NFT community, collectors and photographers.
Michael Yamashita’s NFT Team: 1Kin Labs
Hailing from the Harvard Business School, 1Kin Labs partners with Michael Yamashita’s studio to bring the story behind his NFTs to life. Team members include Jason Kingdon, Jack O’Neill and Mark Paton, and it was this group that originally convinced Yamashita to dip his toes into the NFT world.
Yamashita’s first NFT drop was the MYEARTH collection, launched in the summer of 2021, in partnership with Origin Protocol.
Partnering with Cryptohydrate, 1Kin Labs launched “The Four Seasons of Jiuzhaigou” in the fall of 2021, which attracted the attention of notable collectors including Whale Shark, who remarked about the collection:
A perfect and sensible marriage of world-class photography with the power of the blockchain… from one of the top photographers of our times.
The collection sold out, continues to perform well on the secondary market, and inspired the photography community with its technical photography traits and rarity rank in the metadata. The holders also received an airdrop of Yamashita Gan, AI generated image collages of Yamashita’s original photographs.
What’s Next in 2022:
Michael Yamashita has plans to travel to Saudi Arabia and Indonesia in 2022. His team is working to catalog and digitize an extensive archive of his photographs. There may also be periodic releases of single photographs on Superrare, where Yamashita currently has one photograph from Zhangjiajie, China listed for sale.
