Tui De Roy

I was born in Belgium but raised in the Galapagos Islands, where, at the age of twelve, I vowed to compile a complete photographic record of the habits and life cycles of all the native bird species of the islands, not realizing that a lifetime would probably be insufficient for this task.

After shooting thousands of images in the enchanted isles of my childhood, I yearned to travel widely and photograph other creatures in other lands. I photographed emperor penguins under a bloodred midnight sun in Antarctica and polar bears on Spitsbergen's shifting sea ice, condors in high Andean canyons and hornbills in the Indonesian rainforest. Eight years ago, with my partner, photographer Mark Jones, I moved to New Zealand, where I took on the challenge of photographing the nocturnal, endangered kiwi.

This past year, I decided to return to the Galapagos for an intense four-month photo session among old friends such as giant tortoises, marine iguanas, and blue-footed boobies. I saw the subtleties of the light more clearly, the animals' behavior more dramatically. Combining my heightened awareness with improved techniques honed around the world enabled me to reach another level of intimacy with animals I already knew so well.

I shot one sequence of a small female tortoise foiling a large male's mating attempts by quickly spinning around under his huge shell--a behavior I'd seen many times but never before captured. Above all, I savored more than ever the magical experience of immersing myself in the lives of the islands' animals, which are uniquely trusting of humans.