Antoni (Toni) Harting was born in 1927 of Dutch parents in the Dutch East Indies, then a colony that has become the Republic of Indonesia, and spent many of his younger years in the city of Bandung on the island of Java. During the 1941-1945 Pacific War he and his family (father, mother, brother) were imprisoned in several Japanese civilian concentration camps.

He went to Holland in 1947 to study at the Delft University of Technology where he obtained a Master's degree in Aeronautical Engineering in 1964. Next he was employed until 1970 as a research engineer/scientist at the National Aerospace Laboratory in Amsterdam, specializing in industrial aerodynamics and the aerodynamics of air cushion vehicles.

Between 1951 and 1966 he spent several summers in the Provence region of the south of France as a travelling musician, also making thousands of documentary photographs of people he observed during his adventures in Provence.

He married Ria Litz in 1970 and that same year the couple migrated to Toronto in Canada, where he received another Master's degree in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Toronto in 1972.

After discovering the magic lure of the Canadian outdoors, he left his consulting engineering profession in 1974 to build a new career as a freelance writer-photographer specializing in canoe topics, particularly wilderness canoeing.

Over the years he has become an international expert in paddling photography and the products of his work have been widely published in numerous books, articles, brochures, posters, manuals, catalogues, calendars, book reviews, reports and logos. Several of his outdoors photographs are included in private art collections. For many years he presented illustrated lectures and courses on subjects related to wilderness canoeing and photography.

In 1993 one of his photographs was used in the design of a postage stamp by Canada Post. In 1996 he published the book French River: Canoeing the River of the Stick-Wavers (The Boston Mills Press), and he is now recognized as a leading authority on that historic river. His how-to photography book Shooting Paddlers: Photographic Adventures with Canoeists, Kayakers and Rafters was published by Natural Heritage Books in 2000.

In August 2000 he was on-camera commentator in a TV program on the French River in the series Great Canadian Rivers, broadcast by Discovery Channel since 2001.

From 1985 till 2005, and again from 2008 till 2013, he was the editor of Nastawgan, the quarterly journal of the Wilderness Canoe Association. In 2001 he had to stop active canoe tripping because of health problems. He continues to write, sell stock photos, and give lectures.

In 2006 he was on-camera commentator in a TV documentary on the French River produced by TVO. Also in 2006 he was a contributor to the displays of the Ministry of Natural Resources' French River Information Centre near Hwy. 69.

In 2003 he began work on the photos-and-text book, Bonjour Provence, showcasing many of the photographs he had made in the south of France between 1951 and 1966.

In March 2007, some of his photographs from the Provence collection were shown in a very successful solo exhibition in Toronto, followed by six more gallery shows from 2007 to 2009.
 

During September 2009, a famous show, Thirty in Twenty, was presented in a prominent art gallery in Toronto, based on a culinary adventure he and his wife had enjoyed during 20 days in September 1973 in France when they visited 10 of France's fabulous three-star restaurants, while living in a Volkswagen camper van.
 

In the 1990s and 2000s, he self-published several books based on his photographs and gallery shows.

Several of his canoeing photographs as well as dozens of images from his Provence series are in private art collections.

In March 2013, he self-published a book, The Devil's Grin, on his experiences in the Japanese civilian concentration camps in the Dutch East Indies during the Pacific War. He offers this book to as many people as possible as a free-of-charge, digital pdf file that can be ordered by email. See his website www.toniharting.com 

Presently, he is working on the photo book Bonjour Provence and a guidebook for the French River.