"Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry and narrow-mindedness and many of our people need it sorely on those accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one's little corner of the earth all one's lifetime."

- From Mark Twain's 'Innocents Abroad'

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We both take these pictures, which we hope you enjoy watching as much as we enjoy taking them. Please feel free to leave comments with the pictures... We're learning as we go watch our photos in chronological order from our earliest photos and have a good laugh :-)

I started photographing lightheartedly in 2003 with a Panasonic SV-AS10, then in 2004 got more serious with a Nikon E5700 for a trip to Egypt. During a lengthy trip around the Maya sites, the slowness of the E5700 meant many good shots were lost and by late 2006 it was time to to get a DSLR kit for our first trip to Iran. So I got a Nikon D200 and MB-D200 grip, Nikon SB-800, Nikon AF-S VR18-200 mm f/3.5-5.6 ED DX and Sigma 30mm f/1.4 EX DC HSM. For a trip to Scotland I added the Sigma 10-20mm f/4.0-5.6 EX DC HSM and a for trip to Uganda and Rwanda I added the Nikon AF-S VR 70-200mm f/2.8 with Nikon TC-20EII.

After a second trip to Iran and in the middle of an intimidating 5,000 RAW shots to process, Nikon released the D700, and it became time to trade up from the D200, which by then had done nearly 30,000 shots;

* Nikon D700 with MB-D10

* Nikon SB-800 Flash.

* Nikon AF-S 50mm f/1.4 Prime

* Nikon AF-S 14-24mm f/2.8 Wide Zoom

* Nikon AF-S 24-70mm f/2.8 Standard Zoom

* Nikon AF-S 70-200mm f/2.8 VR Medium Long Zoom

* Nikon AF-S 200-400mm f/4 VR Telephoto Zoom

* Nikon TC-14EII 1.4x Teleconverter

* Nikon TC-20EII 2x Teleconverter

* Canon 500D Close-up lens

* Solmeta N1 GPS tagger

* Gitzo GM2561T Monopod with Gitzo GH1780QR Ballhead

Ale started with a Nikon D40 and the AF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 plus AF-S 55-200mm f/3.5-5.6 VR, as well as the Nikon AF-S VR18-200 mm f/3.5-5.6 ED DX.

Ale now shoots her her amazing photos on faster kit;

* Nikon D90

* Nikon AF-S VR18-200 mm f/3.5-5.6 ED DX 'Superzoom'.

...while I use her 'old' Nikon D40 as backup.

We carry the neat little Casio EX-S500 for when the Nikons are too big...

...and if all else fails we'll resort to using the phone...

We both use Lowepro Sidewinder backpacks.

After 23 years of Windows, going from 2.0 down to Vista, I've given into the darkside and bought an iMac Quadcore. I use Lightroom2 and PS CS4 where needed. I crop and process levels, and sometimes remove distracting cables or poles, but with the exception of some indulgences I do not change or add to photos. What you see is what we got.

- Rather than adding long explanations for each individual photo, each photo has a specific description, with some having more background information (example), so it all makes more sense if you watch the whole set in order. In addition, most sets and collections have relative introductory information (www.flickr.com/photos/youngrobv/sets/72157600203944983/).

- Try browsing the photos using the cool Flickriver environment, which is a bit heavy, but much nicer with larger pics all on black!

Enjoy! And please forward any suggestions, questions or ideas!