The Netherlands native visited Tasmania is 2010 and 2017 before being approved for an Australian visa and relocating to Latrobe amid turbulent pandemic times in May 2020.

Since arriving in Tasmania, van Duinkerken has been able to develop his wildlife photography and a photo he took of a platypus swimming in the Don River in Devonport has seen nominated as a finalist in the Australian Geographic Nature Photographer of the Year competition.

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While van Duinkerken was excited about the prospects of winning the competition, he said it was a culmination of hard work and ingenuity that saw him thriving in the "wilderness and ruggedness" of Tasmania.

"I think what Tasmania still has in terms of wildness, you don't see in a lot of other places in the world, and Australian fauna is very unique," he said.

Taken by what Australia and Tasmania had to offer in earlier expeditions down to the southern hemisphere, van Duinkerken said it was finally touching down in Devonport that saw him come into contact with an animal that had previously been elusive to him.

"When I was travelling through Australia in 2017 I spent hours on the mainland trying to spot a platypus for the very first time, and I never got to spot one," he said.

Though he had already become fascinated with platypus, a healthy obsession was born from his first contact to the point he built his own device to support his camera while he sat like a statue in various rivers around the state to try and capture the unique monotreme from a perspective as atypical as the animal itself.

This device - called a hide - enable van Duinkerken a way of capturing platypus and other waterborne animals from a low angle.

But the construction of his hide was just the first step. van Duinkerken said the real perseverance came in the next step - having to sit idly in freezing cold bodies of water waiting for animals to come across his lens.

"With these kinds of things you just have to put the hours in. Sometimes I sit in the water for two or three hours and don't see a thing," he said.

At times, that "special moment" has taken van Duinkerken so long he has become overcome by the cold water in which his is waiting.

"I've had times where I've been waiting in water for an hour and I end up just shaking uncontrollably and it's not until I've come home and been in the shower for an hour that I warm up properly," he said.

For van Duinkerken, though, it is all part and parcel of being able to take photographs capable of being recognised in national competitions.

And while the cold may be a complicating factor in trying to capture the perfect picture, van Duinkerken said the weather - and everything else Tasmania had to offer - stacked up against a multitude of other places in the world he had taken photos.

He said compared to various locations across Europe, through Mozambique, South Africa, Central and South America, Indonesia, Taiwan, Thailand and mainland Australia, Tasmania stood above all else.

"In the end, for me, Tasmania because of its wilderness and its wildlife was the best spot," he said.

van Duinkerken said his photography journey had led him to Tasmania, but it may have been a collision course manifested well before he even knew what the state had to offer.

Growing up a nature enthusiast, there could scarcely have been a better place for his path to lead him.

"I've been obsessed with nature my entire life and Australia was always a place I wanted to visit," he said.

Now he is here, van Duinkerken is stopping at nothing to leave his own photographic mark.

van Duinkerken can be found on Instagram at @wildpeekau.