Keynote Speaker: NANPA Summit 2025
www.tuideroy.com
Based in both New Zealand and the Galapagos Islands, for over half a century I’ve been shooting wildlife on all 7 continents, often solo, always seeking out the remotest, least known and most pristine destinations. I’ll take the audience on a grand tour of the world through my lens, detailing my adventures and book projects, especially the one in progress, finally circling back to how it all started in the Galapagos Islands where I grew up. This is a highly illustrated, deeply personal talk.
Born in Brussels, Belgium, I grew up in the Galapagos since the age of two, where my artist parents went to leave a pioneering life. I took up nature photography when I was 16 and had my first article published the following year, and cover story in Audubon magazine at the age of 19.
The author of over 20 books, my work has appeared in over 40 countries. Currently I am working on a large format book on SEA TURTLES OF THE WORLD, following two sites volumes, PENGUINS and ALBATROSS.
From Galapagos, Around the World and Back
Thursday, May 15 / 4:00pm – 5:00pm / Keynote Room
Becoming an acclaimed nature photographer renowned worldwide was an accident. An accident called the Galapagos Islands. When I was two, my artist parents decided to leave war-torn Europe and become pioneers there. My dad loved photography and processed his black-and-white rolls in sea water because there wasn’t enough rainwater to spare. From a young age I met many scientists and fell in love with the wildlife they studied, and that surrounded me daily. I never planned to become a photographer, but I wanted to take pictures.
Chance encounters and generous strangers — both of which represented typically Galapagos moments — landed me a cover story in Audubon magazine when I turned 19; six years later I had a contract with the then Viking Press (another chance encounter) to produce my first coffee table book, GALAPAGOS: ISLANDS LOST IN TIME.
But I was restless; I wanted to explore and photograph “truly wild” places, not just my backyard. So, for the next 25 years I wandered the world under the motto “The Roving Tortoise: Images of Wildlife and Wilderness from Our Planet’s Most Pristine, Uninhabited Regions”
Over 20 photo books later (Antarctica, New Zealand, The Andes, Albatross, Penguins and Kenya amongst them), I returned to my roots. Galapagos, much changed for better and for worse, but still the place my heart resides. And I picked up my [by now much more modern] camera and started photographing these mythical islands all over again, even though now slightly less Lost in Time.
That is my story, in pictures: as a naturalist, a photographer, a writer, conservationist and above all, someone who venerates nature for its own sake. I’ll be here to share that photographic story with you.
