Photojournalist Tom Carter, from San Francisco, spent four years traveling in all 33 provinces and autonomous regions in China. His weighty book, China: Portrait of a People (2008, Blacksmith Books and Haven Books, Hong Kong, 640 pages), presents more than 800 color photos. In this interview, Tom discusses the challenges of photographing, traveling rough and avoiding censorship in the tightly controlled republic.

Question: Your book focuses on pictures of people, everyone from peasants to punk-rockers, ethnic groups to entrepreneurs. As a lone foreigner, how did you approach so many strangers and become intimate enough to photograph them?

Tom: Most of my photos came about as a natural result of my curiosity and interaction with Chinese people. For the portraits, it just takes a sincere interest in your subjects to get that close. I don’t believe in hiding behind a zoom lens. I was as near to everyone as you see in the pictures, sometimes just inches away. The candid life shots presented a bigger challenge. When a foreigner walks down the street in China, all activity stops the moment he’s seen, so it’s tricky to photograph life before life stops to stare. No book captures a country’s true spirit with only pictures of places. A sunset photo at the Great Wall may be nice, but what do you really learn? I wanted to show people and dispel a stereotype of the Chinese as a single nationality.

Question: Do you speak the language well?

Tom: It humbles me that my Putonghua borders on offensively poor. After arriving in China, I taught English and had no time to formally study Mandarin. I picked up my entire vocabulary while traveling. I call it Survival Chinese. I communicate, but usually miss the gossiping-granny circles. When all else fails, a friendly smile works. Actually, Chinese dialects vary. Even most nationals have trouble understanding other Chinese beyond their home areas.

Question: Did you plan to become a photojournalist and author?

Tom: Never, but that’s China -- a real land of opportunity! Teaching presented a means to an end, namely traveling. My photos led to a book contract and travel assignments from periodicals. I stand apart from my contemporaries in that I don’t sit in a cushy foreign correspondents’ club “networking” and waiting for assignments. I’m on the road finding my own.

Question: You had a few run-ins with Chinese censorship.

Tom: The concept of press freedom remains alien in Communist China. The media’s state-run. Every word or image entering or leaving the country needs to be approved by the Ministry of Information. Crazy, huh? But as an independent freelancer without backing from a news agency, I lack official credentials. I got most of my images the hard way, often leading to confrontations with the local authorities who view foreign correspondents as a threat. For the images of coal-miners with soot-covered faces, I and a Chinese travel companion spent days in the mountains of South Shanxi before we snuck into a coal mine, grabbed a few shots and got the hell out. As one of China’s most dangerous and controversial occupations, mining’s off limits to journalists. Some of my best photos are hit-and-run.

Question: Once you photographed a peasant riot and nearly got arrested?

Tom: Being caught up in a proletarian uprising – something reporters in China rarely hear about, let alone witness, due to rapid suppression of information – was frightening. Under penalty of incarceration, I was “implored” by the local police to hand over all my photos, but some slipped into the book.

Question: You’re proud of guerilla-style documentary photography, but one reviewer called your photos “an assault on ordinary people who should be left alone”. What’s your take?

Tom: I prefer the term ‘street photography’ because that’s what I do. I pound the pavement, learning by observation and interaction. I capture life as it is. So what if a picture’s crooked? Life’s crooked!

Question: China’s a vast country. Travel for a living sounds like a life of leisure. What’s the reality?

Tom: When traveling, I slept in 15 RMB (US$2) flophouses with particleboard walls – where it’s illegal for foreigners to stay – with an occasional youth hostel or night on a bus-station floor. But my insolvency led to experiences that staying at the Sheraton never could produce.

Question: Why travel so much?

Tom: I come from a long line of nomads. My mother was a Danish immigrant of Viking stock and my father a hybrid Panamanian-Cuban-Italian. Drifting flows in my blood. My dream is to travel the world, photograph and write.

Question: What day-to-day difficulties did you encounter?

Tom: You mean hour-to-hour difficulties. My photos may excite potential tourists, but I won’t sugar-coat the reality. Backpackers say China may be the world’s most challenging place. Along with language barriers, you have 5,000-year-old customs and extreme cultural differences that can be vexing. Discovering the nuances is part of the fun. I delight in the challenges. Sure, I may pound at walls in frustration, but there’s a new adventure at every turn. Nothing’s worse than being bored, which isn’t possible in China.

Question: How did you plan routes?

Tom: I didn’t plan a single route. I just pointed myself in a direction and let life carry me. Not only does every Chinese person you ask where to go have an excitedly different opinion, even about which way is north, but there are so many undiscovered villages off the charts. The time to reach such places may be days longer than a map suggests, so itineraries become pointless.

Question: What other surprises and dangers arose?

Tom: Surprises were the rule. I’ve had everything from a near-lethal bout of encephalitis to being shanghaied by crooked English schools. Once, I stared into the business end of a North Korean machine gun after accidentally crossing the border. These are stories I laugh about now, but my mother doesn’t.

Question: How has China changed recently?

Tom: Dramatic changes came from China itself. The government’s addicted to hyper-urbanization. In historic cities like Beijing, workers bulldoze ancient hutongs to build office towers. Architectural contrasts appear in my book as a last glimpse at China’s old slate rooftops before the skyline becomes purely steel and glass.

Question: Do you believe more people will visit China?

Tom: China’s doors were closed for so long that it’s natural for the world to be curious. My pictures fuel the curiosity by offering intimate looks at humanity and scenes of daily life.

Question: Can you offer tips to travelers?

Tom: What China wants tourists to see often differs from what’s marvelous there. Sheltered tour-groups cover the Forbidden City in Beijing, the terracotta warriors in Shaanxi, a boat ride on the Yangtze and shopping in Shanghai. But some people may avoid souvenir shops and luxury hotels, get street maps and travel on word-of-mouth. Definitely, they’ll see more of the real China.


(Photos by Tom Carter)




Unemployed workers and retirees occupy
their time with impromptu street operas.




The photographer's 'sincere interest' in people
allows him to point and shoot at close range.


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