Students at Rochester Memorial School were treated to exotic tales of far away places as photographer and author Richard Sobol shared his experiences abroad on Thursday. The Rochester Parent Teacher Organization sponsored the visit.

Sobol, “The Traveling Photographer,” has visited 45 countries during his career and written 14 books, mostly for children, with colorful photos of everything from the mountain gorillas of Africa to rare twin baby elephants in Thailand.

“I’ve always loved meeting people in different cultural backgrounds and experiencing those different ways of life,” said Sobol.

Currently a resident of Wellfleet, Sobol grew up closer to Boston.

“I started doing photography in high school and just fell in love with it,” he said.

The young photographer went on to study at Boston’s School of the Museum of Fine Arts and Tufts University. After graduation, Sobol worked as a photojournalist, including the coverage of four presidential campaigns. His work has appeared in Time, Newsweek and National Geographic.

Writing children’s books grew out of a position through the International Fund for Animal Welfare, based in Yarmouth Port.

“Doing stories on their conservation projects kind of led to me to telling longer stories and turning them into books,” Sobol said.

Twenty years later, the world continues to provide an inexhaustible list of ideas for more books. Each year, Sobol takes three or four trips for two to three weeks to gather photos and stories.

Every new title takes about two years from start to finish and many highlight the importance of preserving habitats and species.

Kids are a helpful part of the publishing process, and Sobol presents parts of his unfinished books during his numerous school visits each year.

At Rochester Memorial School, Sobol gave kids a taste of his uncompleted book on Thailand’s macaque monkeys. Sobol showed the kids two sets of photographs, one showing the more playful side of the monkeys, who “swarm over cars, handbags and anything else they can find.” The other set of photos shows the monkeys in a creepier light.

After seeing both options, kids voted on which story they preferred. One group was split down the middle.

“It gives me a great chance to know what I’m doing right and get ideas about ways I can do it differently and better,” Sobol said.

He also shared some of his adventures with the kids, including a frightening encounter with a hippopotamus. Sobol was in a canoe taking photos of birds when his guides in nearby boats saw a hippo slip under the water. They quickly got to shore while Sobol was oblivious to the danger.

“I had my camera, not seeing what’s really going on around me,” he said.

When he got to shore, before the animal caught up to him, his guides said, “‘the last time a hippo hit a boat, we never found the people in the boat.’ Then I got scared.”

Sobol’s stories prompted students to ask questions about his journeys and the animals he’s encountered.

Yes, he said, the macaque monkeys do jump on you, and no, he did not enjoy that.

Kids also asked if Sobol had been to Lithuania, had seen a snow leopard and if he speaks any languages. Yes, no, and three (but not fluently.)

While Sobol still has a long list of places he wants to travel (Antarctica, Cuba, the Galapagos Islands,) he’s always happy to come home.

“Of all the wonderful places on the planet, Outer Cape Cod is one of the top places,” he said.

See photos from Sobol’s travels and learn about his books at www.richardsobol.com.