Local photographer Alan Sloyer lives a bit of a double life.
One is based in Roslyn, where he works as a gastroenterologist, does triathlons and takes scenic photographs.
The other is everywhere else in the world.
He has visited 70 countries and six continents, and his camera is always there with him.
Sloyer grew into photography as a child with a Kodak camera capturing trips he went on with his family.
One of his most memorable early trips without his parents was in 1980 during his studies in Brooklyn. Sloyer traveled with the American Medical Student Organization to Ethiopia and the People’s Republic of China. The organization selected one student from each state for the trip.
Sloyer expanded it by spending a week beforehand in Egypt.
“That was a good starter trip,” he said.
Since then, he has dedicated the time and energy necessary to keep planning adventures.
He got his first digital camera in 2000.
Sloyer is not just a landscape shooter. When he travels abroad, he likes to interact with the locals as he photographs them.
“I have a whole album full of kids from around the world,” he said. “I connect with those kids and make them smile.”
His last trip was to Japan (“my son lives in Japan, so that’s easy”).
His son, who lived in Hong Kong for three years before moving to Japan, where he works in finance, probably got the travel bug from him, Sloyer said. Their destinations together have included Mt. Kilamanjaro and India.
As much as he itches to see the rest of the world, Sloyer has been happy to call Roslyn home for the last 28 years.
He appreciates the beauty here and the challenge of finding new ways to capture it.
He has been producing 12 seasonal photos for the Village of East Hills calendar every year since 2004.
“You have to go out during different weather conditions and different seasons to find views that look original and are unique,” he said. “Any time it snows I try to run out and take a picture of the people getting onto the Long Island Rail Road from the overpass.”
The first photography contest he won was for North Shore University Hospital. Now, he’s still winning it but has other awards, including a top prize for the Jamestown Audubon Society Nature Photography Contest for capturing fishing nets saturated by a bright orange sunset in India.
The New York Times published the photograph in its travel section.
For as many places as he’s visited and scenes that he’s captured, don’t ask Sloyer if he has a favorite shot.
“Oh, that’s impossible,” Sloyer said. “It’s the last place that I’ve visited that’s the best.”
