Andrew Chandler and his brother Jonathon left the Greenwich Observatory in London in January 2017 to circumnavigate the globe arriving back in Britain in May after 118 days on the road. It had taken immense amounts of planning. I expect it would be even more challenging, if indeed at all possible, in these pandemic times given that some of the eleven countries visited still have severe travel restrictions in place.

Due to the amount of travel and luggage restrictions involved Andrew took just one camera body with him, a Canon EOS 7D Mk II, and three lenses (16-35mm f4L; 24-105mm f4L II and 100-400f5-5.6L II) which gave him a decent range of focal lengths. Both he and his brother also used their iphone cameras when necessary, always an admirable addition to any photographers armoury these days!

They travelled through eleven countries, touching four continents and used planes, boats, campervans, bicycles and foot to move between their many destinations. Starting in India they moved to the Far East taking in Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia, Malaysia and Indonesia in fairly quick succession. Then on to Australia and New Zealand where Cyclone Debbie almost wrecked their plans.

Having made it the the Western Seaboard of the USA several national parks took a bit of a bashing before they arrived in New York. Finally a last stop off in Iceland completed the tour before they made it back to the Meridian in London - their circle complete.

This 277 page book, published by Andrew through online publisher Mixam (who seem to be getting a good reputation with photographers these days) is a beautiful record of the people, places, birds and wildlife that Andrew encountered. With well over 800 pictures from the 12,000 he actually took (no, I haven't counted them all!) there is a lovely selection of his work and many are accompanied by a short commentary and camera settings for those interested.

The book is available directly from Andrew himself through the contact page on his website.  Or you can email him at andrew@andrewchandler.co.uk or even call him on 01482 888628 or 07908 696 638. Copies are available in hardback at £49.95 or softback at £34.95. Postage is to be added and Andrew will be able to inform you of that at the time of ordering.

It is certainly a lovely coffee table addition and will encourage you to think about your next trip with a camera. Incidentally the eleven photographs in this blog represent one from each country visited in the trip, but they are not in the order visited so can you guess which ones they are? If you want to know the answers - well, you can always buy a copy!!