Winter 2008 photograph of Tom Carter in Tokyo, Japan, taken at the infamous Shibuya intersection, incorporating time-lapse photography, which causes the crowds to appear as a blur. This photo was taken by Swiss fashion photographer Brian Walker, whom Tom befriended during their residency at Sakura House (an ill-reputed housing complex for "gaijin" foreigners). Tom and Brian reportedly could only take three pictures at a time due to the 15-second green light, causing them to run back and forth ceaselessly for almost and hour until they captured the correct exposure. Tom then returned the favor by using Brian's camera, a Canon EOS-1Ds Mark III, to take a similar photo of Brian.
Another photograph of Tom Carter at the infamous Shibuya intersection, taken by swiss fashion photographer Brian Walker. The story goes that Tom saw these two Japanese teenage girls crossing the intersection and spontaneously asked them to pose with him. Uniformed high school girls are iconic fixtures around Shibuya, and Tom says he felt their participation made the photograph more "definitive.".JPG)
Publicity photo circa winter 2007 of Tom Carter for CHINA: Portrait of a People
Another publicity photo circa 2007 of Tom Carter with his Chinese girlfriend (we are SO jealous!!!), whom he credits as follows in the acknowledgements page of his photobook CHINA: Portrait of a People:"...who for over two years has been my best friend, my guardian angel, my muse, my commiserator, my translator, my model, my talent scout, my photo assistant and my researcher; who put up with all the “why are you with him if he’s so poor” remarks from her unabashed fellow Chinese, who never hesitated to engage in fruit-throwing fights with dishonest street vendors, who held her own against local police during their hostile interrogations; and who as my “packbagging” companion during my second spin across China stood jovially by my side through a peasant riot in Hunan, a historical blizzard in Liaoning, a flood in Fujian, a typhoon in Hainan, traversed the scalding sands of Inner Mongolia and ascended the lethal altitudes of Tibet, all without complaint as I snapped away with my camera. Without her, this book literally would only be half of what it is."Their photo was taken in winter 2007 by a studio photographer in Beijing. Tom reportedly was conflicted between using this media still or the following image of him in Tibet for the "About the Author" page of CHINA: Portrait of a People, as he wanted to "honor" the lady who helped him complete his book. However his publishers felt the Tibet photo was more "reflective" of his journey. (In a bit of comical trivia, the suit Tom is wearing is a knockoff Ermenegildo Zegna, purchased in Beijing's Silk Market for RMB 150 - approx. USD $20.)
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Snapshot of Tom Carter with a family of nomadic drokpa shepherds encountered atop the 5008-meter Dongdola Pass in the Kham region of eastern Tibet during a week-long 4WD expedition from northern Yunnan province across east Tibet to Lhasa, as Tom writes in his published narration of the trip:"At 5,008 meters we reached the highest altitude of our trip. At the bleak Dongdola pass we encountered a settlement of nomadic shepherds (drokpas) living in black tents while herds of emaciated yak-cows grazed the surrounding frozen pastures. These gentle people of an inhospitable land were dressed in simple hand-woven attire, but they were extravagantly accessorized in coral, turquoise and silver jewelry. These shepherds had seen few white faces in their lifetime. One drokpa family had yet to see a digital camera and they were mesmerized by the sight of their own images on the LCD screen."
Photo taken in summer 2006 by Eelco Florijn, a Netherlander who was traveling with Tom at the time. The camera in Tom's hand, a 2003-issued 4-mpx Olympus C4000, is what he (amazingly) used to shoot his entire book of photography, CHINA: Portrait of a People.
Fall 2004 snapshot of Tom Carter (with his trademark yellow shirt from his TV appearances) as an English teacher in Dongying city, Shandong province, China, where he taught 1,500 primary school students, grades 1-5. Prior to becoming a photojournalist and author, Tom arrived in China in 2004 as an English teacher; his experiences teaching English were published in the Wall Street Journal:
"I never thought I'd be an educator. I didn't like most of my teachers when I was a kid. Teachers the world over are typically low paid, overworked and underappreciated. But the fatigue and the hit on my income -- compared to what I might earn in the U.S. -- are what I pay for being part of a rapidly-changing China. As it turned out, I'm not so bad in front of the chalkboard -- I actually like it."
An interesting tidbit: the first-graders in this picture are holding up name cards of the English names Tom personally bequeathed to all 1,500 of his students.
