Nine years ago, Tom Carter traveled from San Francisco to China, responding to a job posting that turned out to be a scam. He managed to find another job as a teacher, and saved enough money to embark on a 56,000 km trip through all of China's 33 provinces that lasted two years. Carrying a camera – just a a 4-megapixel point-and-shoot – Carter captured some amazing images of the widely varying landscape, people, and architecture across the nation. Photo: Buddhist pilgrim family from Sichuan. (Photo by Tom Carter via The Atlantic)

Vendors selling marigold garlands, which are used to decorate temples and homes during the Hindu festival of Durga Puja, drink tea as they wait for customers at a wholesale flower market in Kolkata, India October 6, 2016. (Photo by Rupak De Chowdhuri/Reuters)

A man yells for help minutes after a Serb shell hit a crowded pedestrian walkway in Sarajevo, May 1993. Radovan Karadzic, a 70-year-old former psychiatrist, still in robust health, is the most senior political figure to be convicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia. He was found guilty of 10 out of 11 charges. He was acquitted of a second count of genocide in Bosnian towns. (Photo by Reuters)

Pallas' s cat kittens with theit mother in an enclosure at the Novosibirsk Zoo, Novosibirsk, Russia on July 11, 2018. Pallas' s cat, also known as manul, is a small wild cat native to montane steppes of the Central Asia and listed as an endangered species. (Photo by Kirill Kukhmar/TASS)

A kangaroo and joey are seen in a burnt forest on Kangaroo Island, south west of Adelaide on January 16, 2020. Australia’s continuing bushfire crisis has taken an enormous toll on wildlife, with huge numbers of mammals, birds, reptiles, insects and other species killed. (Photo by Jo-Anne McArthur/Weanimals)

In this Sunday, March 24, 2019, file photo, free skate pairs gold medalist Sui Wenjing and Han Cong of China perform during the gala exhibition for the ISU World Figure Skating Championships at Saitama Super Arena in Saitama, north of Tokyo. (Photo by Annice Lyn/AP Photo)

Nutrias venture near the camera at the river Nidda in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, 15 June 2017. The rabbit sized animals are often confused with biebers by amateurs. (Photo by Boris Roessler/DPA)

A winter swimmer jumps into a pool in the frozen Songhua River during an activity for welcoming the Chinese New Year on January 30, 2022 in Harbin, Heilongjiang Province of China. (Photo by Liu Yang/VCG via Getty Images)