A cat disrupts between Mexico's Tigres UANL and Real Salt Lake during a quarterfinals match as part of the Leagues Cup 2019 at Rio Tinto Stadium on July 24, 2019 in Sandy, Utah. (Photo by Jeff Swinger/USA TODAY Sports)

A former living goddess Kumari, middle, watches the Indra Jatra festival, an eight-day festival that honors Indra, the Hindu god of rain, in Kathmandu, Nepal, Friday, September 13, 2019. (Photo by Niranjan Shrestha/AP Photo)

Alice Bagnoli of Italy slaloms during the preliminary round of the 2023 IWWF World Waterski Championships at Sunset Lakes October, 13, 2023 in Lake County, Florida. (Photo by Johnny Hayward/Getty Images)

Poland's Daria Pikulik, Poland's Wiktoria Pikulik and Britain's Elinor Barker (R) crash as they compete in the Women's Madison race during the fifth day of the UEC European Track Cycling Championships at the Omnisport indoor arena in Apeldoorn, on January 14, 2024. bark (Photo by John Thys/AFP Photo)

Derby's Byron MacLean, left, edges out Hall's Joe Nham in the boys 55-meter hurdles at the CIAC State Open indoor track championships at the Floyd Little Athletic Center in New Haven, Saturday, February 17, 2024. Lyman Hall's Owen Rich, right, falls after taking down the final hurdle. (Photo by Cloe Poisson/Hartford Courant via AP Photo)

Shara Magomedov, right, punches Armen Petrosyan during a middleweight mixed martial arts bout at UFC Fight Night on Saturday, October 26, 2024, in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. (Photo by Altaf Qadri/AP Photo)

In this photograph taken on July 10, 2012, a Pakistani worker pulls on a wire he will connect to a thick chain that will in turn be used to peel away a slab of the outer structure of a beached vessel in one of the 127 ship-breaking plots in Geddani, some 40Kms west of Karachi. (Photo by Roberto Schmidt/AFP Photo)

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)