Randy Olson, Melissa Farlow Photography

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  • Exercise on hospital roof top near Wuhan's Iron and Steel plant.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7493_1176523-32.jpg
  • Schoolbus to gradeschool near Wuhan's Iron and Steel plant.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7493_1176523-21.jpg
  • A steel worker at the Wuhan Iron and Steel plant
    RANDY OLSON_MM7493_1176523-8.jpg
  • A steel worker at the Wuhan Iron and Steel plant
    RANDY OLSON_MM7493_1176523-7.jpg
  • Two models sleep on the floor with their heads on a pillow before appearing at a fashion show at a bar venue.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7493_1176594.jpg
  • Employees arrange dresses inside a fashion designer's workshop.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7493_1176587.JPG
  • A couple embraces in the back of a convertible. Seventy couples in a mass marriage ceremony traveled to Century Park for the Rose Wedding Festival.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7493_1176576.JPG
  • A child plays the piano while a woman instructs in the living room of an apartment.<br />
<br />
From Leslie Chang’s story that accompanied these photographs in National Geographic Magazine:<br />
<br />
By the time she was ten, Bella lived a life that was rich with possibility and as regimented as a drill sergeant’s. After school she did homework unsupervised until her parents got home. Then came dinner, bath, piano practice. Sometimes she was permitted television, but only the news. On Saturdays she took a private essay class followed by Math Olympics, and on Sundays a prep class for the middle-school entrance exam and piano lessons. The best moment of the week was Friday afternoon, when school let out early. Bella might take a deep breath and look around, like a man who discovers a glimpse of blue sky from the confines of the prison yard.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7493_1176575.JPG
  • A young woman shops at the Carrefours Department Store that is filled with colorful merchandise and signage.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7493_1176572.JPG
  • A young woman with a camera taking a picture in a pedestrian shopping area at night.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7493_1176571.JPG
  • Portrait of a smiling young woman at the Baby Face Club.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7493_1176568.jpg
  • A woman talking on a cell phone on a city street at night.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7493_1176567.jpg
  • A portrait of a young Chinese woman eating with chopsticks.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7493_1176565.JPG
  • A young woman smiles with her eyes from a partially open car window open in the rain with drops of water on the car's red hood.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7493_1176555.jpg
  • A pet lover with her dog holds out a treat while a dog with big ears peers out from a television screen.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7493_1176553.jpg
  • A young woman sits on the floor while trying on clothes and jewelry for an accessory photo shoot.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7493_1176550.JPG
  • A woman points while young people enjoy drinks and conversation in a crowded bar.<br />
Flashing neon strobe lights electrify night spot that attracts young people in Shanghai.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7493_1176546.jpg
  • A woman stands by a fence in an urban basketball court that is lined with Nike ads.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7493_1176538.JPG
  • A young woman shops for shoes in a busy store.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7493_1176531.JPG
  • A dancer in green sparkles and fringe performs with a live snake at the Fun Ti Carnival Restaurant in Beijing. <br />
<br />
The dancers, wait staff, and performers are all migrant workers from Xinjiang Province in Northwest China. Migrant workers in China are mostly from impoverished regions who go to more urban and prosperous coastal regions in search of work. <br />
<br />
China has been experiencing the largest mass migration in history and people have left the countryside for the cities-perhaps 400 million people by 2025. Many are farmers and farm workers made obsolete by modern farming practices and factory workers who have been laid off from inefficient state-run factories.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7493_1176492-1.jpg
  • A models in an apricot-colored designer dress is backstage at a fashion show. Beijing has become a modern day fashion capital of the country.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7493_1176480-7.jpg
  • Models dress and put on stilettos backstage at a fashion show. Beijing has become a modern day fashion capital of the country.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7493_1176480-5.jpg
  • Elysee Yang, owner and designer of Zemo Elysee with a shirtless male model in a small shop that sells fashions off the Sanlitun bar street, a nightlife strip popular with expatriates.<br />
<br />
he number of women entrepreneurs in China is growing. About three in ten businesses in China are women owned and, according to the All-China Women’s Federation, women account for one-quarter of total China-based entrepreneurs .
    RANDY OLSON_MM7493_1176478.jpg
  • Young staff workers at their desks in cubicles with computers in a dot-com office.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7493_1176458.jpg
  • Children of migrant workers play outside an office building where moving men workers take a break in Beijing.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7493_1176454.jpg
  • A worker's desk is stacked with tchotchkes, sodas, cell phone and plant in a  rising web company sponsoring the Olympic Games.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7493_1176445.jpg
  • A bride checks her earring in a mirror while she prepares for her wedding.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7493_1176434.JPG
  • A worker helping to prepare for a festival takes a break to sleep in a comfortable chair placed in the middle of a street in Shanghai.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7493_1176413.JPG
  • A worker helping to prepare for a festival takes a break to sleep in a comfortable chair placed in the middle of a street in Shanghai.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7493_1176413-1.jpg
  • From comfortable plush seats, young people watch the entertainment of a stage show including singing and dancing at the Shanghai Orient Rome Holiday Hotel.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7493_1176399-4.jpg
  • A woman in a green gown sits in an darkene, empty corridoriIn an over-the-top, exotic spa, massage parlor, and hotel in the Suzhou Creek area of Shanghai. On another floor, men walk from the locker room through an aquarium tunnel filled with sharks and other endangered species. <br />
From there they can play ping pong or watch a movie with their family in their bathrobes or meet their mistresses in a discreet room.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7493_1176399-3.jpg
  • Couples stand waiting in a park at the Rose Wedding Festival, an annual mass marriage event held in Shanghai since 1998.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7493_1176382.jpg
  • Shoppers wear pajamas on the street while admiring clothing in the 200 block of Guangdong road near the Bund.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7493_1176335.JPG
  • Workers stand on wires to pull electrical power lines above pedestrians.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7493_1176329.JPG
  • A you couple stop to look at lighted billboards on East Nanjing Road, the world's longest shopping precinct. It is around 6 km long and attracts over 1 million visitors daily.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7493_1176317.JPG
  • With food ready on the table, a woman sweeps the floor cleaning an apartment before dinner while her husband watches their young child.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7493_1176311.jpg
  • Fresh food items like crocodile and other meat are displayed on ice at the butchery department of Sam's Club.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7493_1176310.jpg
  • A woman pushes a shopping cart by a wall of televisions that are all tuned to a show featuring puppy dogs in a Sams Club. The company also opened the first Wal-Mart in Shenzhen, China.<br />
<br />
This is the city where Deng made his famous “to be rich is glorious” speech. The signs that hang overhead in this abundant store proudly announce, “Made in China.” <br />
<br />
In China 17 years ago, the best store was a government “Friendship Store” that displayed a photo of a female employee on the wall with a sign underneath, “Worst Employee of the Month.” The only way you could motivate workers at that time was to shame them. <br />
<br />
Interestingly, but perhaps not surprisingly, beauty in China is seen as utilitarian. Cosmetics for instance are a major business in China and women in the China Middle see this as an important part of their lifestyle. Wal-Mart aims for the Comfort Class consumer earning between $5,000 and $20,000 a year.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7493_1176310-4.jpg
  • Young people wearing orange t shirts at the counter of a Sams Club. The company also opened the first Wal-Mart in Shenzhen, China.<br />
<br />
This is the city where Deng made his famous “to be rich is glorious” speech. The signs that hang overhead in this abundant store proudly announce, “Made in China.” <br />
<br />
In China 17 years ago, the best store was a government “Friendship Store” that displayed a photo of a female employee on the wall with a sign underneath, “Worst Employee of the Month.” The only way you could motivate workers at that time was to shame them. <br />
<br />
Interestingly, but perhaps not surprisingly, beauty in China is seen as utilitarian. Cosmetics for instance are a major business in China and women in the China Middle see this as an important part of their lifestyle. Wal-Mart aims for the Comfort Class consumer earning between $5,000 and $20,000 a year.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7493_1176310-1.jpg
  • Shopping carts full of plastic bags surround lunch tables at Sams Club in Shenzhen The company also opened the first Wal-Mart in Shenzhen, China.<br />
<br />
In China 17 years ago, the best store was a government “Friendship Store” that displayed a photo of a female employee on the wall with a sign underneath, “Worst Employee of the Month.” The only way you could motivate workers at that time was to shame them. And there was very little plastic packaging.<br />
<br />
This is the city where Deng made his famous “to be rich is glorious” speech. The signs that hang overhead in this abundant store proudly announce, “Made in China.” <br />
<br />
Interestingly, but perhaps not surprisingly, beauty in China is seen as utilitarian. Cosmetics for instance are a major business in China and women in the China Middle see this as an important part of their lifestyle. Wal-Mart aims for the Comfort Class consumer earning between $5,000 and $20,000 a year.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7493_1176309-1.jpg
  • Clerks watch over counters looking for shoppers at Sams Club. The company also opened the first Wal-Mart in Shenzhen, China.<br />
<br />
In China 17 years ago, the best store was a government “Friendship Store” that displayed a photo of a female employee on the wall with a sign underneath, “Worst Employee of the Month.” The only way you could motivate workers at that time was to shame them. <br />
<br />
Interestingly, but perhaps not surprisingly, beauty in China is seen as utilitarian. Cosmetics for instance are a major business in China and women in the China Middle see this as an important part of their lifestyle. Wal-Mart aims for the Comfort Class consumer earning between $5,000 and $20,000 a year.<br />
<br />
This is the city where Deng made his famous “to be rich is glorious” speech. The signs that hang overhead in this abundant store proudly announce, “Made in China."
    RANDY OLSON_MM7493_1176307-2.jpg
  • A woman stands in the shadows under and umbrella watching dancers in a park on East Nanjing Road, the world's longest shopping precinct that attracts over 1 million visitors daily.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7493_1176302.JPG
  • Young people are doused with water as men engage in a water fight at China Folk Culture Villages in Shenzhen.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7493_1176301-2.jpg
  • A model dressed in white shorts and tall boots sits on a hood of a car while a man admires the headlight at China International Automobile Exhibition. The event began in Guangzhou in 2003 and is one of the largest international auto shows in China. <br />
<br />
This event has an exhibition ground measuring 85,000 square meters and it filled eight exhibition halls. Over 370 exhibitors from 20 other countries and regions, took part in this exhibition, which was covered by more than 1,600 news reporters representing upwards of 510 TV and radio stations, newspapers, magazines, and online media at home and abroad. 120,000 people attended.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7493_1176563.jpg
  • Passengers gaze out the windows of a bus in Shanghai. <br />
<br />
This easy migration of people from city to city is still hard for me to get used to. Seventeen years ago when I was traveling between Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou, they all had a ring of policemen around them checking identity papers. I was in China trying to get through those rings of security during the Tiananmen Square uprising. I remember traveling with wire service photographers and driving through those checkpoints at 90 mph and seeing the policeman jump up and down on the dais—literally hopping mad—but there was nothing they could do because they did not have guns or radios. After being absent 17 years, I made (technically) five trips to China in about a one-year period. The growth is so fast paced I could feel the energy and the stress on the street. It makes you realize that our empire is over, but you can’t really understand that without being there. Even though the NYT has multiple stories, every day, on the growth and complexity of the Chinese economy, the average American has little idea what this means other than a fear that increased Chinese fuel consumption will somehow affect what they put in the tank of their SUV. Robert Frank photographed twentieth-century America, recording our coming of age—the baby boom, the start of television, car culture, modular housing, and relative wealth distributed throughout the middle class. His photographs are of progress, technology, plenty, but also the weary faces of waitresses and elevator operators who were desperately trying to join the economic party. Those 1950s faces remind me of a line in Leslie Chang’s story about modern China: “What looks like freedom just feels like pressure.”
    RANDY OLSON_MM7493_1176403.jpg
  • Couples shop for furniture at the IKEA store in Shanghai, China that is packed daily, but particularly on Sundays. Consumers have become increasingly willing to purchase home decor as a means of improving their standard of living. Sometimes one can’t maneuver through the aisles.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7493_1176337.jpg
  • A resident walks from the balcony inside an upscale house at the Mission Hills Golf Club's housing development.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7493_1176281.jpg
  • A young woman, lost in thought, sits inside a popular McDonald's restaurant. <br />
<br />
The Chinese food culture has been finely tuned for 3,000 years, but some are more effected than others from the influence of a western food culture.  <br />
<br />
When a steady diet of junk food is consumed over time, many Chinese become overweight which is unlike traditional Chinese practicing customary Chinese eating habits.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7493_1176408.jpg
  • A fish tank separates patrons from the kitchen at a restaurant on East Nanjing Road, a busy shopping area in Shanghai.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7493_1176425.jpg
  • Models in designer clothing line up backstage at a fashion show. Beijing has become a modern day fashion capital of the country.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7493_1176480-6.jpg
  • Brides numbered 32 through 43 line up in their queue at the Rose Wedding Festival. Seventy couples in this mass marriage ceremony traveled to Century Park for the ceremony. The marriage-age consumer is a prime target for first-world companies. The middle class’s under-30-consumer market alone is estimated to grow to the size of the entire EU market in the next decade.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7493_1176371.jpg
  • Red-caped Supermen sell phones outside of the Total Fitness Club in the mall in Guangzhou, Guangdong province. There are 900 million cell phones in China and the West has long predicted that economic growth would eventually bring democracy. <br />
<br />
As James Mann points out in his book, "The China Fantasy," the idea that China will evolve into a democracy as its middle class grows continues to underlie the U.S.’s China policy, providing the central rationale for maintaining close ties with an unapologetically authoritarian regime.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7493_1176463-3.jpg
  • At sunset, a cowgirl drives her pick up back to the ranch in Indian Creek. Respected for her tough grit, skills and determination, the woman has lives in a region rich with Native rock art and amazing natural beauty to the surrounding landscape.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6659_680961-13.jpg
  • A cowgirl drives her herd down a dusty trail from their winter range in Beef Basin, Utah. In morning light, the cowgirl works to move her cattle on public land near Monticello, Utah.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6659_680961-12.jpg
  • A cowgirl dons her black hat as ranchers prepare to brand and castrate calves in Indian Creek. Respected for her tough grit, skills and determination, the woman has lives in a region rich with Native rock art and amazing natural beauty to the surrounding landscape.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6659_680961-09.jpg
  • A cowgirl walks from the corral under towering red rocks near Monticello, Utah. The Indian Creek ranch is owned by the Nature Conservancy. Highly valued for water rights and majestic scenery, the working ranch was saved and run by a woman rancher.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6659_680961-03.jpg
  • Crew members from a family fishing operation land approximately 1,000 Coho salmon in the boat from a purse seine in waters near Craig, Alaska.<br />
Alaska’s fisheries are some of the richest in the world, with fishermen harvesting hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of salmon, crab, herring, halibut, pollock, and groundfish every year. However, overfishing, exploitation, and poor fisheries management in the ‘40s and ‘50s took a heavy toll on the industry. The state adopted drastic measures that saved the fishing industry from collapse. Tough times again hit the fishermen in the 1970s as the number of boats grew and increasingly efficient gear depleted catch levels to record lows.<br />
Permit systems and reserves helped the commercial industry recover in the late ‘70s—a trend that has continued to the present because of cooperation between scientists and fishermen.<br />
Fishermen and loggers rank in the top two spots for most dangerous jobs. Both are common lines of work for people in the Alaskan outdoors. Since the Bureau of Labor Statistics began tracking fatal occupational injuries in 1980, there were 4,547 fatal work injuries in 2010, and fatality rates of some occupations remain alarmingly high.
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  • A woman's shadowy profile seen through a back-lit umbrella.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7112_763270.JPG
  • An Aborigine and white man lighting up cigarettes together.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7112_763260.JPG
  • Three men contemplate the best way to cross a flooded dirt road.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7112_763208.JPG
  • An Aborigine family sitting outside. Two are painting a pukamani pole.
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  • A woman during life-threatening childbirth.
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  • Rose Wedding Festival couples in a motorcade to Century Park. Seventy couples participated in a mass marriage event that started at a shopping mall and ended up in Century Park for the ceremony.
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  • Bus to Wuhan's Iron and Steel plant.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7493_1176523-33.jpg
  • Family on bicycle outside Wuhan's Iron and Steel plant.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7493_1176523-24.jpg
  • Pool table outside Wuhan's Iron and Steel plant.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7493_1176523-23.jpg
  • Fortune teller outside Wuhan's Iron and Steel plant.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7493_1176523-22.jpg
  • Gradeschool at Wuhan's Iron and Steel plant.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7493_1176523-20.jpg
  • Gradeschool at Wuhan's Iron and Steel plant.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7493_1176523-19.jpg
  • Gradeschool at Wuhan's Iron and Steel plant.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7493_1176523-18.jpg
  • Gradeschool at Wuhan's Iron and Steel plant.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7493_1176523-17.jpg
  • Gradeschool at Wuhan's Iron and Steel plant.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7493_1176523-16.jpg
  • Medical care at Wuhan's Iron and Steel plant.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7493_1176523-15.jpg
  • Medical care at Wuhan's Iron and Steel plant.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7493_1176523-14.jpg
  • Military outside the gate to Wuhan's Iron and Steel plant.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7493_1176523-13.jpg
  • Photographer Randy Olson stands on a lift to photograph the gate to Wuhan's Iron and Steel plant that has a statue of Mao Tse Tung with arm raised.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7493_1176523-12.jpg
  • Photographer Randy Olson stands on a lift to photograph the gate to Wuhan's Iron and Steel plant that has a statue of Mao Tse Tung with arm raised.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7493_1176523-11.jpg
  • A steel worker at the Wuhan Iron and Steel plant
    RANDY OLSON_MM7493_1176523-10.jpg
  • Randy Olson at Guest House number two at the Wuhan iron and steel plant.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7493_1176523-9.jpg
  • A steel worker at the Wuhan Iron and Steel plant
    RANDY OLSON_MM7493_1176523-6.jpg
  • A steel worker at the Wuhan Iron and Steel plant
    RANDY OLSON_MM7493_1176523-5.jpg
  • A steel worker at the Wuhan Iron and Steel plant
    RANDY OLSON_MM7493_1176523-4.jpg
  • A steel worker at the Wuhan Iron and Steel plant while taking a lunch break.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7493_1176523-3.jpg
  • A steel worker at the Wuhan Iron and Steel plant is bare-chested and smoking a cigarette while taking a lunch break.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7493_1176523-1.jpg
  • Photographer Randy Olson stands on a lift to photograph the gate to Wuhan's Iron and Steel plant that has a statue of Mao Tse Tung with arm raised.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7493_1176522-1.jpg
  • Three generations play in the home they share. Three young boy lies on the floor mesmerized by a toy train on a wooden track while two women, his mother an grandmother, watch him play.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7493_1176607.JPG
  • A young woman eats with chopsticks in a communal dining room.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7493_1176597.JPG
  • Models primp styling their hair and touching up makeup before appearing at a fashion show at a bar venue.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7493_1176595.jpg
  • Elysee, owner and designer of Zemo Elysee fashion shop with models.<br />
he number of women entrepreneurs in China is growing. About three in ten businesses in China are women owned and, according to the All-China Women’s Federation, women account for one-quarter of total China-based entrepreneurs.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7493_1176593.jpg
  • A bride in a white dress tosses confetti at a mass wedding at the Great Wall of China.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7493_1176589.jpg
  • A dog treat motivates a canine to exercise. Large pets dogs are illegal, so this woman exercises her pet inside on a treadmill in a pet spa.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7493_1176583.JPG
  • Students in their dorm room work at their computers while a roommate hangs his laundry outside the window at Shanghai's Jiao Tong University.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7493_1176579.jpg
  • Rachel is a “headhunter” for the Comfort Class. She is single and lives at home with her parents who were part of one of the worst social experiments in history. Mao unified the country, but then was responsible for the Great Leap Forward, the Cultural Revolution, countless famines. <br />
<br />
Then, Deng proclaimed, “To get rich is glorious” and opened the flood gates to the “Special Economic Zone” cities on the south coast, creating the largest peacetime human migration in history. Many 20-somethings say that Tiananmen Square had to be put down or it would have hurt Deng’s economic plans and they would not have their nice apartments with flat screens in every room.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7493_1176577-1.jpg
  • A parent peers through a window keeping a close eye through the window where a musician plays a guitar to a yawning child.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7493_1176574.jpg
  • An English teacher presents the letter F to preschool children in a classroom. They watch and mimic the gesture.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7493_1176573.jpg
  • A large gold mask is displayed on a ledge while a young woman walks in the lobby of a nightclub.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7493_1176566.JPG
  • A portrait of a young Chinese woman with hands on her face who appears to be tired and lost in thought.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7493_1176564.JPG
  • A rear view mirror reflects a model looking through a car window at an automobile exhibition. The 3rd China International Automobile Exhibition attracts young men to see the cars and a model that is reflected in a mirror.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7493_1176562.jpg
  • Photographers capture photos of a model looking through a car window at an automobile exhibition.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7493_1176561.jpg
  • A flash goes off as a young woman in a dimly lit blue-lit bar snaps a photo with her camera.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7493_1176558.JPG
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