Carpenter studied painting in the Royal Academy Schools in 1836. He exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1841 and the British Institution in 1842 before setting off to the East in 1851. In 1856, he painted a panoramic view of Singapore from Mount Wallich which is now in the Singapore National Museum. Another view of Singapore was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1858. By 1859, Carpenter was living in India where he did a series of drawings of elephant hunting, now in the India Office Library. The Bengal Tent Club also commissioned a series of drawings which were reproduced in book form as Hog Hunting in Lower Bengal, 1861