A lifelong photographer and traveller channelled his fascination with other cultures, particularly off the beaten track in Africa, into a safari business that took Bermudians out exploring the wild as well as new ways of life.

Lloyd Webbe enjoyed taking risks, from his “accidental” start in photography that became his main business to the company, Unique Safaris — later, Safaris by Design — that he launched on a whim in 1986 when travel agents declined to get involved in the endeavour.

Through it all, Mr Webbe considered travel “one of the most exciting ways to receive an education” and loved sharing the experience with others.

He made a point of avoiding cities and visiting rural communities, where people were unfamiliar with tourists.

In the process Africa, and particularly Tanzania in East Africa, became his home away from home.

Mr Webbe told the Mid-Ocean News in a 2004 interview: “I will never retire. I will keep doing this as long as I am able, or until I am horizontal.

“I tell people that if I am diagnosed with some terminal illness, I am going to the Serengeti ‒ I am at home there.”

Mr Webbe also had a keen eye for Bermuda and its scenery, likening his home to “a beautiful rose ‒ it’s very pretty to look at it, but it’s hard to handle; there are thorns”.

He was a nonconformist and often had an uneasy relationship with authority. He liked to say that he “stumbled” upon photography.

His childhood coincided with the Second World War and a time when young Bermudian men were typically expected by their elders to master a trade ‒ in his case, upholstery.

After attending Central School, now Victor Scott Primary School in Pembroke, he started an apprenticeship with his father, James Webbe, who ran an upholstery business.

Although Mr Webbe ventured into his own upholstery work, photography, particularly nature, had become an enthralling hobby, and he found himself unsuited to working for others.

In 1951, aged 18, he submitted three entries to an amateur colour photography contest offered by the Yankee Store in Hamilton.

Colour photography was new to the island. Mr Webbe, who took first and second place with an honourable mention, realised he could take the craft further while he shadowed more seasoned photographers.

He said his method “just evolved slowly” as he took on side jobs, photographing weddings and later moving into passport pictures.

Mr Webbe’s other work to make ends meet included a job as an airport porter, then at Belco. He was fired from both.

“I was told that I didn’t respect authority,” he recalled.

In typical style — unions had yet to become a force in Bermuda — Mr Webbe lost both jobs because he refused to apologise.

He later admitted he spent “a lot of time trying to subdue the explosive side of myself — the side that is best kept subdued”.

Mr Webbe decided he was “unhireable” and figured he was better off working for himself. He inquired at the immigration department about how many people needed passport photographs each month.

He acquired enough business to pay the rent and opened his first studio.

In the course of his travels to workshops abroad and learning from professionals, Mr Webbe’s new trade became a passion.

“I have met people I would never have met and have done things and seen places which would have not happened without my photography contacts,” he said.

“I have flown Concorde and hot air balloons because I was a photographer. It’s what got me into Africa.”

Mr Webbe led his first safari party to Kenya and Tanzania in 1986.

Travel agencies were not interested in backing the venture but he got enough interest in Bermuda to go ahead with it.

It was a test of his knack to forge friendships on the ground, from the owners of hotels and game park lodges to drivers and guides.

Tanzania presented special difficulties as a country emerging from a one-party system under a socialist model of economic development.

Border officials were confused by Bermuda passports and puzzled by a majority Black tour group from a barely known country. They were also unused to seeing a Black person leading a group of tourists.

They would grow familiar as Mr Webbe’s safari tours came back again and again. His first driver in Tanzania became a close friend whose children knew Mr Webbe as “uncle”.

He branched out, taking groups from Bermuda to Zambia as well as South Africa, once the apartheid regime had collapsed.

His skills in photography won him a Prism Award in 2013.

“On safari, there is always a greater moment than the last,” Mr Webbe told The Royal Gazette on that occasion.

“A dramatic photo might be coming within breathing distance of a lion that has just taken down a kill.

“We have had situations where the animals would come right into the camp and you are right there, face to face.

“You don’t think of the danger in the moment; you just think about the shot.”

Mr Webbe also passed on his skills to others by teaching photography.

He had a roster of trusted private clients and his jobs in Bermuda included photographing governors as well as visiting members of the British Royal Family.

Along the way, Mr Webbe took any opportunity he could get to experience a new place — and he was always happy roughing it.

In a 1996 interview, he enthused about the special comfort he took from returning to East Africa and showing up unannounced.

“I know that I can just go,” he said.

“If I arrive in Arusha, Tanzania, I have a home there, a place to stay.

“If I’m in the Ngorongoro highlands with the people of the Masai tribe, I know I can drive into their village and set up my camp there ‒ and stay as long as I desire.”

Mr Webbe is survived by his son, Andre Wilson, and wife Shigeyo Yoshimoto, as well as his sister, Florenz Maxwell, and brothers Charles Webbe and Sydney Webbe.

Lloyd Alfred Webbe, an award-winning Bermudian photographer who loved showing the world to others through safari, was born on December 14, 1933. He died in March 2025, aged 91