Tom Carter captures the many faces of China. (Image: Tom Carter, reprinted with permission)Tom Carter captures the many faces of China. (Image: Tom Carter, reprinted with permission)
Tom Carter captures the many faces of China. (Image: Tom Carter, reprinted with permission)It is almost impossible to grasp the immensity of China. To many Westerners, just the thought of how truly enormous China is can be mind-boggling. Most tourists to China follow a fairly predictable itinerary – the Great Wall in Beijing, the Bund in Shanghai, perhaps the Terracotta Warriors in Xi'an – and might miss what should be the most interesting part of a visit to a foreign country, honest interaction with the local people that gives a place its heart and soul.
Tom Carter's book, China: Portrait of a People, is technically not a travel guide. It doesn't contain tips about where you could lodge for less than 20 euros a night nor where the best places for Peking Duck or Kunqu opera can be found. Instead, it focuses on what makes China what it is – its people.
Carter has lived in China for the past four years, coming to the country to do what most foreigners who want to stay for longer than two weeks do – teach English. Along the way, he had gotten sidetracked and the 800-image book is the wonderful result.
In his introduction, Carter demurs that the photos should not be taken as works of art but rather as a candid portrait of China exactly as the country presented itself to him. In an interview, Carter says that he prefers the term “street photography.”
“I'm out pounding the pavement from 6am to 6pm everyday, learning through observation and interaction. Many photojournalists cover their assignments as quickly as possible so they can remove themselves from the elements, but I revel in the elements,” he says.
“I don't have any technical or artistic preconceptions to my photos. The whole idea of spending an hour setting up a shot and then photoshopping it to death is not what I'm about. I just capture life as it is and then move on. If the picture turns out crooked, so what! Life is crooked!”
China: Portrait of a People delivers on the promise in its title. The images are of ordinary Chinese in their everyday and capture the changing face of China. In a way, the book forces us to confront our prejudices and challenges our stereotypes about who the Chinese are. Is it the hip young woman sporting body piercing? The long-haired youth from Tibet? The farmer taking a break from her toil?
Perhaps it is the weathered faces of old people that speak most eloquently in this collection. No matter their ethnicity – Tibetan, Uyghur, Han – their faces are filled with a wisdom and serenity that speak volumes. Life, they seem to say, might be hard, but here we are, still standing.
China: Portrait of a People (Image: reprinted with permission)And the children and young people, who seem to have no problem hamming it up for the man with the camera. Their faces so full of expectation about what life will bring them next, despite living in poverty and, in the case of the teenagers, pretending not to care. A metaphor perhaps for China's growing pains?
China is the in-your-face bright lights, neon signs and bars in the cities. It is the marketplace of fresh produce and livestock in the smallest villages. The movers and shakers in the highrises of Shanghai and the pilgrim prostrate on the road as he moves, wormlike, towards Lhasa.
China is all of this and more than these, as Carter shows. China is the sum of its people's dreams and hopes and heartaches and joy and pain. There are many, many facets to China that most of us will never be able to see. For most of us, our view of China will be limited by our pilgrimages to its tourist centers. Thankfully, Carter has provided us with a bigger view of the country.
Author: Geni Raitisoja