Firstly let me thank you for taking an interest in Blue Planet Images.
If you can spare a few minutes, let me tell you a bit about myself and Blue Planet Images. My wish is to introduce myself, not bore you!!
Looking back, I can now see that the key event that proved to be a turning point for me in my interest in photography was a burglary in Monte Carlo. (How's that for an opening line to grab your attention?)
My wife, son and I were living there for 5 or so years - I, working as a shipbroker, in what I now call my "First Career" - and in the burglary my camera was taken - a good one, but not as good as the replacement which was to follow!
With the insurance pay-out I purchased my first Nikon SLR camera- an F3-HP - and new horizons of photography opened up for me. I reasoned that if I bought the best camera, and the results were disappointing, then I would only have myself to blame!! Much the same reasoning still holds good with my Nikon equipment today.
However to put my story of travel and photography in context I should go back briefly to my early years.
At school I was keen on geography - an early indication no doubt of my love of travel that I have been fortunate to be able to pursue in the years that followed.
For me travelling is not just about being on holiday, enjoyable as that is. It is about exploring the World with MIND AND EYES WIDE OPEN with camera at the ready, ever alert to possible images and compositions which will best capture the magic and essence of that unrepeatable "MOMENT IN TIME".
With ever more affordable World travel, it is surely an opportunity and a challenge to explore and better understand this unique and wonderful living planet Earth - our common "home" - as widely as our individual financial and physical circumstances permit during as many years of our lives as we may have.
Photography, in a very modest way, was a part of my travels from my first trip abroad at the age of 10 years which was by Sunderland flying-boat to the island of Madeira. Those first impressions of what, at the time, seemed a very exotic place are still fresh in my mind and it is this spirit of the adventure and excitement of travel destinations near and far that I still feel and try to capture in my photographs.
On this first foreign trip, a very basic Kodak Box Brownie camera recorded my black and white photos of 7 wonderful weeks of Summer holidays spent with a school friend and his family who ran an hotel in the capital, Funchal. I was indeed lucky. From time to time I still return to Madeira and in the Gallery pages that follow are included a small selection of images of Madeira and the neighbouring island of Porto Santo, taken on a more recent visit with a better camera and film!!
After graduating from University in the U.K., rather than taking the conventional route directly into a career in the City of London, I decided to take the risk of setting off to try to work and travel my way own way around the World. In this, I was greatly supported by my late-Parents, who despite their anxiety for my safety, tolerated my wanderlust. For this I shall be always grateful and am sorry that they did not get to see realisation of the Blue Planet Images venture.
The two years of travels that followed took me through many and varied jobs and experiences in North America, across the Pacific, to New Zealand and Australia, then on to South East Asia and back to the U.K. via Egypt, and the Mediterranean. Photographically my equipment was becoming modestly better and the self-teaching process continued.
On my return to the U.K. I was seeking a job in the travel or transportation industries when I was offered a position as a shipbroker in the City of London with a major shipowning group. Needing the money, my "First Career" course was set somewhat by chance, but it was interesting, has taken me travelling to many different parts of the World and brought me friends in many different countries. Amongst other things it also helped me to pay for photo equipment and travel!
AND SO TO THE PRESENT - The Brazilian best-selling author Paulo Cuelho, in his much acclaimed book "The Alchemist", tells a tale of an Andalusian shepherd who has a dream in which he has a vision of his destiny in life, which is to travel to find his "treasure."
Many of the most treasured moments in my life have been on my travels, and hopefully will continue for many years to come. My photographs are an attempt to record and share something of the beauty, excitement and magic of those moments and places with others.
The income from Blue Planet Images sales is intended in part to fund further travels and photography for the growth of the archive. It is also my wish that through success in due course, it may be possible for Blue Planet Images to be in a position to give support to selected charities assisting needy children and peoples, whose homes and lives are so often blighted by poverty and hardship, in the very places of natural beauty around the World that we as tourists and travellers so admire. Similarly it is my aim to grow the business into a position to assist some charities that work to protect threatened parts of the natural World. Watch for further news of these plans in the pages of this website in the future.
Thank you again for taking the time to read about Blue Planet Images, and my ambitions for it - one might say "a photo library with a difference".
Sincerely
Robert Sanger
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