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)

A chevrotain or mouse deer feeds in its enclosure at Zurich Zoo, Zurich, Switzerland, October 17, 2012. (Photo by Patrick B. Kraemer/AP)

A girl collects drinking water at Dala river outside Yangon, Myanmar March 3, 2016. Some 650 million people, or one in 10 of the world's population, have no access to safe water, putting them at risk of infectious diseases and premature death. Dirty water and poor sanitation can cause severe diarrhoeal diseases in children, killing 900 under-five a day across the world, according to United Nations estimates. (Photo by Soe Zeya Tun/Reuters)

Municipal workers try to retrieve the lid of a manhole to prevent pedestrians from falling in, in Mumbai, India, Wednesday, September 20, 2017. Incessant rainfall in India's commercial capital has affected air and rail traffic, and schools and colleges remained shut for the day. (Photo by Rafiq Maqbool/AP Photo)

A devotee looks at the camera as she offers prayers to the setting sun during the “Chhath” festival at Bagmati River in Kathmandu, Nepal on October 26, 2017. (Photo by Navesh Chitrakar/Reuters)

Zoo keepers feed crocodiles in their enclosure at the Madras Crocodile Bank, closed due to the outbreak of coronavirus disease (COVID-19), in Mahabalipuram, India, August 3, 2020. (Photo by P. Ravikumar/Reuters)

A masked dancer performs as part of “Devi Pyankha” (Devi Dance) to mark the beginning of the Indra Jatra Festival in Kathmandu, Nepal on September 15, 2021. Nepali celebrate the Indra Jatra festival to worship “Indra”, the god of rain and to mark the end of monsoon season. (Photo by Sunil Sharma/ZUMA Press Wire/Rex Features/Shutterstock)

TikTok chef Abir El Saghir prepares a pastry dish at her kitchen in Jeb Jennin, west Bekaa, Lebanon on June 30, 2022. (Photo by Issam Abdallah/Reuters)