Marco Polo returned home by water, so I wanted to find a fishing situation that evoked the past. When we arrived in India, I combed the coastline looking for the right place. One evening I found a beach in Kerala that had possibilities. When I went back at sunrise, it was like an epic movie.
Thousands of people were going about their business. Huge canoes rowed out and returned with their nets filled with fish. Women were busy sorting through the catches. Children climbed into the nets to pull out the smaller fish. The whole scene made me think that this must have been very close to what Marco Polo saw when he passed through here.
|
According to Marco Polo, Sri Lanka was the best island of its size in the world. He described Adam’s Peak as a pilgrimage site where the devout could climb to the top and see Adam’s footprint.
I climbed Adam’s Peak about 2 a.m. one morning in early spring, when it’s quite cold. It took four hours to make the ascent, but when I got there, I didn’t find anything. I sat there freezing for two more hours, waiting for the sunrise. Finally, the only person up there invited me into his hut. While I warmed up, the sun broke through the clouds and fog. After a very cold start, I was able to get some good pictures.
|
I had heard that Christopher Columbus owned a copy of Marco Polo’s book, The Description of the World, and had written notes and doodled in the margins. So toward the end of the assignment I went to the Columbus Library in Seville, Spain, to photograph the rare edition.
The librarian handed it to me rather casually, but I was in awe. There I was holding this treasure in my own hands, which were covered with Band-Aids for the cuts and scrapes I got in India. The bandages on my fingers made it hard to browse through the book. I had to fight the impulse to lick my thumb to turn the pages.
|
