Photograph with BBC Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2013

Greg du Toit – Guest Photographer

UPDATE: All places on this photographic journey have been reserved and a waiting list has been created.

Should you wish to have your name placed on the waiting list, please call me on +61 418 923 193 or send an email to  denis@denisglennon.com

Before you read further, take a moment to view this short National Geographic film. Go full screen, in HD and increase the volume. To view, click: GREG DU TOIT

In a world populated with excellent wildlife and nature photographers, some stand a little to the side quietly adhering to their own views of life and possessing an individual and distinctive style. When their images appear in “sold out” exhibitions in the National Geographic Society, London, in Sydney, Singapore and in Connecticut, people start to take notice.

Meet Greg du Toit – naturalist, 8th generation African and fine art wildlife photographer.

With five highly commended awards in the last six years and being an overall winner in the BBC wildlife competition – all images in the fine art mould, Greg’s photography is recognised as being distinctive and refined, much like the person.

In 2013 Greg was the overall winner of the BBC Wildlife Photographer of the Year award with the above image, “Essence of Elephants”. This is the most coveted wildlife photography award in the world and Greg captured this image from the underground hide at Mashatu Game Reserve, in Botswana.

A primary focus of this exceptional photographic journey is a return to the same underground hide with Greg, as your personal tutor and field guide.

Greg’s speciality is finding the exclusive, the outstanding and the best subjects, for you to photograph. Predators are another of his specialities. Photographing them in a new light conveying primitive energy and vibrant colours is yet another. His photography conveys intimate interactions with the natural world and this intimacy with his subjects has become his signature style. African wildlife is his forte and his preferred genre is fine art wildlife photography, which has brought him his international acclaim.

His solo exhibition, ‘Africa’, sold out in its first month and was extended. The London gallery hosted an unprecedented 40,000 visitors per day. His image ‘Crossing Frenzy’ toured the world as part of the 2009 BBC Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition, while another image ‘Black Rhino Forest’ received a Gerald Durrell Endangered Wildlife Award in the 2010 BBC Wildlife Photographer of the Year.

Beyond the awards, Greg has undertaken numerous inimitable projects (generally alone) documenting Africa’s wildlife:

•  Three-months camping in the remote north of Kenya, living alongside and photographing the local Samburu tribesmen.
• Several months photographing the remote region of Kenya’s southern rift valley, home to the traditional Loodokilani clan of the Maasai tribe.
• Photographing the remote shores of Africa’s most inhospitable  lake – Lake Natron, on the borders of Kenya and Tanzania; home to the largest breeding ground for Lesser Flamingo in the world. His photography documenting the shores of Lake Natron, led to the Africa Geographic cover story: ‘Living on the Edge’.
• Four months photographing nomadic free-ranging lion, which eke out a precarious existence beyond the designated park or reserve boundaries in Kenya. He was one of the first photographers to capture images of these wild and elusive creatures – leading to the article ‘A Waiting Game’ published in BBC Wildlife magazine.
• A total of twenty-two months in the deep south of Tanzania documenting one of Africa’s largest and truly wild wildernesses. This project resulted in the first ever published photographic portfolio representing Ruaha National Park, in Africa Geographic.
• A photographic expedition trekking with local Maasai guides and pack mules over the wall of the Great Rift Valley, walking from the Masai Mara to Lake Natron.
• A commission by BBC Wildlife magazine to assemble a groundbreaking portfolio on African leopards. This project lasted three years during which he spent over 600 hours in the field photographing wild leopards. The goal of the project was to photograph leopard in the pitch dark of the African night and in a world first, his 13 page portfolio was published in the Oct 2012 issue of BBC Wildlife magazine.

If the idea of Greg teaching you how to capture a collection of compelling fine art images of Africa’s large mammals, it’s predators and adorable meerkats, this photographic journey and the integral photography seminar by Greg, may just be for you.  

The number of participants is confined to a maximum of ten. To ensure optimum photography from the hide we confine the number of photographers to five in every session.

Places will be allocated on the basis of receipt of the completed Registration Form together with payment of the initial deposit and a copy of the mandatory travel insurance policy.

The photographic journey and seminar are suitable for participants of all levels of photographic expertise and is an experience that a non-photographing spouse or travel partner will thoroughly enjoy.

“Everything in Africa bites, but the photographic journey bug is the worst of all”.     [Denis Glennon AO]