American photojournalist Tom Carter has spent the past four years in the People’s Republic of China, traversing all 33 provinces and autonomous regions not just once but twice. The San Francisco native’s hardback book, a definitive 800-image volume aptly entitled CHINA: Portrait of a People, is due out this winter from Hong Kong publisher Blacksmith Books. Tom took a day off from travelling to discuss the challenges of taking pictures in China, how he evaded censorship in the tightly-controlled republic, and to share a few insider tips on visiting what is to become the world’s largest tourism market.
Your upcoming book focuses heavily on photographs of people, from peasants to punk rockers, ethnic groups to entrepreneurs. As a lone foreigner in a faraway country, how did you approach so many strangers, let alone become intimate enough with them to take their portraits?
Most of my photos came about as a natural result of my curiosity and interaction with Chinese people during my travels. It wasn’t until the end of my trip that I thought about compiling them into a book. This is a tribute to all the people I met along the way. 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 actually as near to all those people as you see in the pictures, sometimes just inches away. The candid life shots, which comprise a good third of the book, were actually more of a challenge. As a foreigner walking down the street in China, all activity stops the moment you are seen, so it’s tricky to photograph life before life stops to stare at you. I don’t believe any book can capture the true spirit of a country with only pictures of places. Sure, a photo of a sunset over the Great Wall is nice, but what do you really learn from it? I wanted to show the people, and dispel the stereotype of the Chinese as a homogeneous single nationality.
You must speak the language pretty well.
That’s the very first question I always get from other expats I meet in China! It humbles me to admit that my Putonghua borders on offensively poor. I taught English when I first arrived in China, which left me no time to formally study Mandarin. I picked up my entire vocabulary while travelling. I call it Survival Chinese. I can communicate, but I’m usually left out of the gossiping granny circles. A friendly smile works well when all else fails. I might add, though, that Chinese dialects vary widely by province, so even most nationals have trouble understanding other Chinese outside their own hometowns.
You say you came to China as an English teacher, but four years later you’re a published photojournalist and author. Did you plan this career move?
Never, but that’s China for you, a real land of opportunity. Teaching was just a means to an end, which was travelling. Out of that first long year on the road sprung my collection of photos, which resulted in a book contract and travel assignments from various periodicals, which brought me full circle back to my second spin around China. I believe I stand apart from my contemporaries in that I’m not sitting around a cushy foreign correspondents club networking [makes mock quotes with his fingers] and waiting for my next assignment; I’m out on the road finding my own. But maybe that’s why Reuters still hasn’t called me.
You’ve had a few run-ins with Chinese censorship of your images and articles. Care to share?
The concept of Freedom of the Press, something the west takes for granted, is still entirely alien in Communist China. The media is state-run and every single word and image that comes in and out of the country needs to be approved by the Ministry of Information. Crazy, huh? But since I’m an independent freelancer without the backing of any news agency, I lack official journalist credentials. Most of my images I’ve had to get the hard way, which has often resulted in confrontations with local authorities who view foreign correspondents as a threat.
For example, for the three single frames of coal miners with soot-covered faces that appear in this book, I and my Chinese travelling companion had to spend several days in the mountains of South Shanxi before we were able to sneak into a coal mine, grab a few shots then get the hell out before being caught. Mining is one of the most dangerous and controversial occupations in China, and is entirely off limits to journalists. Some of my best photos are hit-and-run like that.
There’s one incident in particular I want to hear about: a peasant riot that you photographed and which almost got you arrested. Tell us about that.
