The first few years of his career were spent in Timbavati Game Reserve (South Africa), where he served an apprenticeship as a Wilderness Trails Guide. It was during these years that he set aside devoted time to study every aspect of the African bush, including identifying as many species of wild flowers, trees, grasses and dung beetles as possible! His days were spent stalking Africa’s big game on foot and these skills later proved invaluable as he focused his attention on wildlife photography. Since those early days, he has gone on to photograph some of Africas wildest, remotest and largest ecosystems. His artwork has hung in both the London and Sydney Natural History Museums and his Authentic Africa collections have been exhibited across the globe, from New York to Singapore.

Although he has photographed bears and wolves in Russia and polar bears in the arctic, African wildlife remains his true love and his specialty. His fine art wildlife works are easily recognized by the tangible mood, primitive energy and vibrant colours that they convey and these intimate interactions with the natural world, skilfully composed and captured in-camera, have brought him international acclaim. He was invited to exhibit his work for the National Geographic Society in London and Singapore respectively, where his solo exhibit titled Africa sold out in its first month, before being extended. The London gallery hosted an unprecedented 40 000 visitors per day.

Greg also regularly receives honors in the most prestigious wildlife competitions in the world including the most coveted title in world wildlife photography, namely ‘The Wildlife Photographer of the Year’. His image titled ‘Crossing Frenzy’ toured the world as part of the 2009 BBC Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition, while another image titled ‘Black Rhino Forest’ received a Gerald Durrell Endangered Wildlife Award in the 2010 BBC Wildlife Photographer of the Year (WPY). With a total of 6 Wildlife Photographer Of The Year awards, his latest image titled Wild Dog Pack, was a finalist in the 2017 black and white category. View all his awarded images on this link: WPY awarded images. He is also honored to have co-judged a photographic competition hosted by Africa Geographic and alongside fellow judges Peter and Beverly Pickford.

Essence of elephants

Greg du Toit on the 49th Annual Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition

Although a fine art wildlife photographer by profession, his artwork and writing is however much more than a career; it is a way for him to channel his passion for Africa and to share the beauty and awe of Africa’s wild places with others, hopefully contributing to their continued existence. Highlights in his career include undertaking a three-month project that entailed camping in the remote north of Kenya, where he lived alongside local Samburu tribesman and got to experience their culture first hand. Another special time for him was the extensive undertaking to photograph the remote region of Kenya’s southern rift valley, home to the traditional Loodokilani clan of the Maasai tribe. It was during this sixteen month project that Greg was able to spend much time on the remote shores of Lake Natron, not only the largest breeding ground for Lesser Flamingo in the world, but also one of Africa’s most inhospitable lakes. His time spent documenting from the shores of Lake Natron, led to an Africa Geographic cover story in February 2006 titled ‘Living on the Edge’.

While in Kenya, he also undertook to photograph nomadic free ranging lion, which eke out a precarious existence beyond formal park or reserve boundaries. Setting up hides and spending countless hours sweating it out on the floor of the Rift Valley, he was finally able to capture images of these wild and elusive creatures. A fun and behind the scenes story titled ‘A Waiting Game’ appeared in the June 2009 issue of the BBC Wildlife magazine. He was also interviewed about this story on NBC’s Today Show as well as on BBC World Service (click here to see more of Greg in the media). This story received wide media coverage the world over.

He also spent a total of twenty-two months in the deep south of Tanzania where he set out to document one of Africa’s largest and truly wild wildernesses. In fact, it was so remote and wild that in the south of Ruaha National Park, he had to first slash rudimentary bush tracks, before undertaking to photograph the area. This project led to the first ever published photographic portfolio representing Ruaha National Park, which appeared in the March 2008 issue of Africa Geographic magazine. A more recent photographic adventure entailed trekking with local Maasai guides and pack mules over the wall of the Great Rift Valley, walking from the Masai Mara to Lake Natron.

Greg has before been commissioned by the BBC Wildlife Magazine to assemble a groundbreaking portfolio on African leopards. This project lasted three years and saw him spending over 600 hours in the field photographing wild leopards. The goal of the project was to photograph the leopard in the pitch dark of the African night and in a world first, this 13 page portfolio was published in the Oct 2012 issue. You can now join Greg and learn his secret recipe for photographing leopards here…

Most recently his images have featured in the ‘remembering’ series of coffee-table books and auctions held at London’s Royal Geographic Society. These projects are a collaboration of the best wildlife photographers in the world and all proceeds have gone to rhino, elephant, great ape and lion conservation. You can read more about this project here. He is also the conservation ambassador for the ‘Rebuilding The Pride‘ lion project in Kenya which helps protect the free ranging lion population in the south rift valley of Kenya. Through the hosting of exhibitions in both Kenya and the USA, as well as the selling of his books at these events, whereby all proceeds go to the project, he continues to raise awareness and also offers a very unique safari annually to visit the project and area. This safari includes photographing flamingoes from the air and you can read more about this one-of-a-kind safari here.

One of his current focuses is in offering bespoke private photographic safaris and small group photographic workshops. In addition to running his own personalized safaris, he is also commissioned by other safari operators to conduct and host photographic workshops. National Geographic Expeditions have before contracted him as an Expedition Manager on their ‘Southern Africa by Private Air Expedition’ and he has been invited to speak as far afield as northern Finland (click here to read more about his inspirational presentation). After living in the African bush and on remote locations he is now based in the city of Johannesburg, South Africa. From this base he is available for commissions and has before been commissioned by the National Geographic Channel on the launch of their Great Migrations series. Most recently Greg was selected by the California Academy of Sciences as a 2019 judge for the Big Picture Natural World Competition.

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