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)

Visitors watch a tree decorated with about 10,000 Easter eggs in the garden of the retired couple Christa and Volker Kraft in Saalfeld, central Germany, Tuesday, March 19, 2013. The Kraft family has been decorating their tree at Easter for more than forty years. (Photo by Jens Meyer/AP Photo)

This photo taken on April 5, 2013 shows Buddhist monks passing a yak in Seda Monastery, the largest Tibetan Buddhist school in the world, with up to 40,000 monks and nuns in residence for some parts of the year. Seda, known to Tibetans as Serthar is located in Ganzi prefecture in the west of China's Sichuan province and has become a hotbed of protests and violence since the Tibetan uprisings of March 2008. (Photo by Peter Parks/AFP Photo)

A lemur inspects a camera at Tarsus Nature Park in Mersin, Turkey on July 25, 2021. The population of lemurs, one of the inhabitants of Tarsus Nature Park, increases with new births every year. Lemurs are among the most interesting species in the zoo. (Photo by Serkan Avci/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)

Chinese American actress Bai Ling arrives at the 58th Golden Horse Awards in Taipei, Taiwan, Saturday, November 27, 2021. Bai is a guest at this year's Golden Horse Awards, one of the Chinese-language film industry's biggest annual events. (Photo by Billy Dai/AP Photo)

Bryan Adams took the pictures for next year’s Pirelli calendar, which features fellow musicians including Cher, Rita Ora, Iggy Pop and the American rapper Saweetie, above, as it depicts a typical day in the life of a touring performer. (Photo by Bryan Adams/Pirelli)

Models use their phone lights during a power outage to put on make-up before the start of the third Ouaga Fashion Week in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, Friday May 13, 2022. Ouaga Fashion Week returned to the Burkinabe capital after a two year COVID-19 related break. (Photo by Sophie Garcia/AP Photo)

Plebes form a human pyramid to place an upperclassman hat atop the 21-foot vegetable shortening-covered Herndon Monument, a tradition marking the end of their plebe year at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, U.S., May 23, 2022. (Photo by Kevin Lamarque/Reuters)