CHINA: Portrait of a People
by Tom Carter
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Book Reviews of CHINA: Portrait of a People
Book Review: China: The Story You've Never been Told
Summary: 5 Stars
Upon reading and viewing the images of Tiziana & Gianni Baldizzone's "Esprit Nomad" on Le Figaro, a photo exhibition in Jardin du Luxembourg earlier this year in Paris, one name came immediately to my mind--Tom Carter.
It's neither your highly publicized new Modern China of concrete jungle, the new wave of gold (money) rush and the 2nd world economic power, nor it is your romanticized China in Zhang-yimou's gold-glazing extravaganza and seductive women loosely wrapped in lavishing and silky dresses. This is the other side of the China story, the story that you've not yet been told.
Tom Carter takes you to the alley of Beijing Hutong to meet the young women working in the pre-Beijing Olympic pink-light district; the high-rise building (completely beyond the realm of aestheticism) juxtaposed to the ravished old lanes houses of shattered beauty and buried stories; the daily Salah prayer in a 15th century Id Kah Mosque, a Tibetan Buddhist embarking on a long and painstaking journey to the holy capital Lhasa with nothing but a leap of faith.
It's the portrait of a rapidly developing China, the fragility of a new-born national and cultural identity in the making, the colorful and vibrant landscape of multiculturalism, the shocking contrast of old and new, modernization and the remains of their past, ancient wisdom and certain painful memories. It is a portrait of a people in all its complicity and simplicity.
Tom is very proud of his book. When I spoke to Tom 2 years ago, he told me that his book could be used as educational material, even for school kids. Carter opens your eyes and invites you to witness, even just in a few glimpse of the modern China and its minority cultures from its everyday life to hidden and unusual scenes, from the modernization of Shanghai, Beijing to the remotest corners of Yunn, Kashgar and Qinghai, untainted and still seem to be frozen in time.
Indeed, it's the smile of a Al Ha minority woman (a smile not yet "contaminated" by modernization, materialism and economic growth?), the luminous eyes of a Uyghur girl that made us realize that it's a culture not lost but found and thanks to Carter, captured by his lenses in this two-year journey across 33 provinces and +800 images.
Under the immense sky, there lies the jaded-green Yamdrok-tso Lake, if you are willing to stay still for a while, maybe you will also hear the rest of the China story and the Portrait of a People.
Book Review: the book that everyone wonders about china or life in general should not miss
Summary: 5 Stars
I first know Carter through facebook where i happened to come across some of his photos published in this book and since then i've always been a fun of his art works and his views towards art in general.
As far as i know, Carter is many things to many people: a good friend, an insightful mentor, a China expert...the list goes on. But there is no question in any of these people's minds - behind his quick smile and sparkling eyes a relentless photography mind is lurking and working.
As nowadays we've all heard from time to time that China is becoming the major focus of the world in many ways, however, we haven't seen much art work that presents the country, its people and culture in such in-depth way as Carter did in this book. the photos in themselves are in no doubt great - by this, i mean, the lighting, the color, the composition, the angles and all the rest that make photography a perfect art form to document our life. However, what makes this book unique is that how the artist managed to attach his own very personal/private emotions toward his objects through the lenses. It's the most amazing photo book so far i've seen in terms of China and its people,what's more, it's a book where we not only could enjoy as art, be installed with the knowledge of a specific culture, but also glimpse something foundamental about the artist himself and the way he interacts with the world, which is always the key factor to make an art work valuable, and also why we often feel there is something that tingles our heart in this book.
I would be unfair to say he is obsessed, but there is a certain focus on looking at the people and the society as a whole and decrepit as a way to consider what we, as humans, all have in common. I'll leave it up to you if there is any connection to the thread of desire for control that runs through the book. You can also decide if you agree with me or not that he helps us to see or remember the unintended and forgotten consequences of our choices as a society.
Book Review: Not your tourist's China
Summary: 5 Stars
Tom Carter has done an invaluable service by letting us see the China we will not see as a tourist to China. His photos capture the peoples of each province from the point-of-view of a photographer who is more interested in the people being photographed than his own photography and photographic techniques. This observation is based on having met Tom during a recent visit to China while leading university students on an education abroad trip.
The book is the product of backpacking through China's provinces and photographing the people he met along the way. Some images are disturbing and some are funny, but all the images capture the soul of China. Even more important is that in the photos you see the China that is not sanctioned by the government or exploited by the tourism industry. Missing, but thankfully so, are those images of the Great Wall, the Forbidden City and all the other sanitized photos of the travel magazines. Included are the children, the man disfigured by an industrial accident, the people who live on the small farms, and above all the ethnic minorities that populate so much of China. We often hear about the people of Tibet, but most of the other minorities get lost and become only a blur of the larger term "Chinese" people.
This is a book of photographs, but don't overlook the excellent text that accompanies the photos. It is not just a photo book filled with pictures, but it is a personal diary that chronicles the experience that is China. Every review should have one negative, and the one thing that could have been improved is the page color and the size of type because for those of us who are getting older, our eyes do have some difficulty reading the text. The text, however, is so interesting that I could not just look at the photos and overlook the author's experience on the border with North Korea or the other adventures that went into making up Carter's Chinese adventure.
Reviews are good, but you need to get this book and experience it for yourself.
Book Review: Accurate, vivid, and touching!
Summary: 5 Stars
I am a Mainland Chinese who grew up during the 10 years of Cultural Revolution. At the end of my graduate study in 1986, I went on a hitch-hiking trip to Tibet with a friend of mine. We had 45 RMB Yuan, a camera, and 4 rolls of films with us. We spent a month on the road, riding in the back of coal-hauling trucks, on the make-shift engine cover in the front of old buses, in the back of tractors, climbing over hills, and riding on the back of horses. We slept in horse stables, tents, and sometimes, for 1.5 yuan a night, we got to sleep in a bed...
That was the highlight of my travel experience: 1 month, 4 provinces, and 100 photos.
Tom Carter has done this for 2 years across 33 provinces in China. When I looked at the photos in his book, my eyes were swelled with tears the whole time: His photos have so accurately and vividly captured the features and the characteristics of the people from this most diversed country in the world that I call my motherland! Without reading the captions, I can tell that that young man is from Guangxi, that girl is from Sichuan, and those folks are from Heilongjiang. I can hear them talk in their dialects. I can feel their hopes. I can touch their spirits... They have aroused my desire to talk with them and laugh with them again. They reminded me so much of everything I saw in my little excursion over twenty years ago. It was a journey down the memory lane but it is more. It tells me things that I have no experience of since I have been gone away for almost 20 years...
I have lived in the United states for many years. When I go to bookstores, I am naturally attracted to the sections where I can find books about China. I have not seen another book like this - so real and so recent, capturing all the changes that have happened in China in the last 20-30 years while at the same time showing the essence and heritage of the culture.
I hope more people will read this book.
Book Review: I am Chinese and I liked it
Summary: 5 Stars
My friend just returned from China and brought this book back with her as a souvenir. She got it in Beijing, so I was very happy to see it on Amazon! At 640 pages, I expected it to cost a mint, but the price on Amazon is a great deal, so I have bought 2 to get the super Saver Shipping, and I will give one away as a gift to my grandmother.
The photographer, Tom Carter, traveled to ALL 33 province in China to make this book. No other photographer has ever done that before. Instead of focusing on the tourist sites or beautiful locations like the other photo books do, Tom Carter went EVERYWHERE to show us the complete China. I appreciated this the most about his book.
I could not stop saying "wow" over and over again out loud to myself as I browsed this book. I wouldn't say his photos are beautiful in the traditional sense, because i'm really not interested in that dreamy, photoshopped stuff. On the contrary, the pictures in CHINA: Portrait of a People were so...REAL!
I've grown quite bored of books about water reflected on rice terraces and the sun rise over the Great Wall and ethnic minorities dancing during some festivals. I want to see what life back in China is really like. I want to know how the people's faces change from province to province. CHINA: Portrait of a People is the only photo book I have ever seen that does that. His pictures are very up-close and personal. I can't imagine how any westerner accomplished this. Even I as a Chinese would never be brave enough to get that intimate with people I don't know.
Well, it has taken me almost a WHOLE WEEK to finish looking through this book, it's SO thick, like a cube! I haven't even read the chapter introductions yet. But the captions are very informative and helped to understand what I was seeing. I would suggest this book to anyone going to China on holiday, as it really makes the reader excited.