In March 2010, photographer Uruma Takezawa left Japan with two backpacks—one on his front and one on his back. More than a thousand days later he returned.

Carrying only his clothes, cameras, a computer, a tent, and a sleeping bag, Takezawa set out to create a body of work that celebrates the connection between people and their land, with a focus on communities that are cut off from the modern world. He thought he would be gone for a year.

“When I left Japan I thought one year would be enough to look at every continent, but it was not enough at all,” he said in a recent phone interview.

“And when I finished one year, I had only finished