Billy Nunweek

Billy Nunweek: The Journey

After Kiwi film director Peter Jackson brought Lord of the Rings to life on screen, his New Zealand film locations became a road map for Billy Nunweek’s burgeoning career as an adventure and landscape photographer.

Billy was born in Auckland and his family spent time in the United Arab Emirates and Malaysia with his father’s construction work, and returned to New Zealand in 2011, with a taste for travel and ready to explore his homeland.

“That was pretty formative, it gave me the travel bug,” he says. Billy set out on a mission to capture the stunning landscapes of his homeland while trying to forge a livelihood delving ever deeper into the natural world.

“As I started to get my independence, I started planning little road trips. I was so inspired by the Lord of the Rings location book, I moved to Christchurch in 2015,” Billy recalls. The magic of the South Island soon captured his imagination.

Billy relied on a sturdy four-wheel drive to venture off the beaten track and into the wild and remote regions of NZ’s South Island he wanted to document.

“It’s never been about four-wheel driving, it’s about the opportunities the four-wheel drive gives me,” he says. “Then I started to think where I could get with the truck and my own feet – the hikes I’ve always wanted to do, organically capturing images along the way.”

He upgraded his photographic equipment and honed his craft, began posting images to his social media, and before long he’d drawn a significant following. “My Insta profile took off when it was really easy to get followers. I had good early growth, just from consistently posting photos of really beautiful places. The locations kind of did the work for me, as I was learning, developing my trade.”

Initially, Billy headed to the popular tourist spots, where iconic scenes attracted likes and followers, but soon tired of the well-worn path. “Now I do anything to avoid what’s easy. I do hikes because I just don’t see photos of these places.”

When a flatmate who was also a photographer had more work than he could handle, Billy picked up some of the overflow and soon a commercial photography career developed. “In 2022, I started properly pitching to brands. It was a bit more organic and blossomed into quite a few fruitful relationships. I only want to work with brands that I would buy myself.”

Top of his wish list was Dometic, with his reliance on functional and dependable outdoors gear that allowed him to remain in remote locations in comfort for longer. “We built a relationship and haven’t really looked back. It’s been the easiest working relationship,” he says.

Among Billy’s favourite products is the Enerdrive/Dometic collab power system, which solves all his off-grid energy needs on the road. “I don’t have to think about power anymore. There’s usually three of us on the road and we never want for anything. It’s relaxing. It takes the time pressure away.”

He’s also a big fan of Dometic Go’s compact camp chairs because of their robust construction and durability.

Billy rattles off a roll call of his favourite places to photograph, together with florid descriptions of the spectacular scenery – mountains and lakes and glaciers - that makes you want to jump on the next flight over. The Ball Hut route in Canterbury, Godley Valley, Eglington Valley, Milford Sound, Lake Pukaki, the Siberia Hut track.

“I’ve been travelling this island for ten years ... Where NZ wins is the diversity over a short amount of travel, from sub-tropical to sub-arctic. And because of the lack of light pollution, we have up there with the best night skies in the world.”

Billy’s next frontiers are international, and they maintain the themes of spectacular scenery in cold climates – touring from Calgary to Vancouver in Canada, Washington state in the US, Iceland, Siberia, Svalbard in Norway and Antarctica. Which makes the need for robust and reliable camp gear all the more critical. “I’m rough on gear, so if it stands up to the Billy durability test you know it’s good ... I know how much they’ve invested in their research and development.”