I grew up travelling.
By the time I was 18, I'd lived in the UK, the USA, Singapore, the Netherlands and Nigeria. I've never stopped and so by the end of 2019, I've visited 60 countries; many a number of times. I've been asked, "Do you ever just go to a beach and just lay there?" and the answer is no, I relax by seeing something new and wonderful.
I bought an early digital camera back in 1999, from savings earned working in West Africa with my father. It was a tiny thing that ran on AA batteries and could take perhaps a hundred 640x480 images. I loved it and it was an early example of where photography was moving, but it was a toy.
It was almost another ten years before I first got seriously into photography, in 2008. Fresh out of a relationship, I took a DSLR on holiday with me that I'd borrowed from a friend and fell in love with the art of travel.(You can even read the realisation here: Galata Tower) Previously, I'd been living with a talented amateur photographer and so had not really taken a hand in shooting, except for the occasional snap. Ever since I visited Istanbul, I've been taking photos of everywhere I have been. I've always been a prolific writer and the photos I've taken have given me the power to illustrate the places I'd been writing about.
A year or two later, I started turning the bigger trips I did into published travel diaries, a reminder for myself more than anything. These books ultimately evolved into this website, a chronicle of where I have been and what I've experienced. This is also the reason some of the entries are written quite chronologically or as a narrative and others which are not part of a journey are more descriptive of a location.
The name, "a Tog's Trek" comes from the shorthand a number of my photography friends use for a group of Photographers, a group of "Togs". As a Tog, I wanted a record of where I had trekked.
Happy travels,
Seb
