Tim Laman

| Wildlife Photojournalist

Wildlife Diaries

The Wildlife Diaries newsletter is the best way to keep up to date with Tim Laman’s latest work and travels, and to learn about photography and natural history as well. Read through his recent posts here or sign up to receive the posts via email using the form on the right.

Conservation

Wildlife Diaries 13

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My passion for photographing birds-of-paradise first grew from a desire to document some amazing birds that few people have had a chance to see in the wild, and share them with the world in the pages of National Geographic.  As I have made 30 expeditions to the region where they occur (Papua Indonesia, PNG, and N. Australia) over the past 15 years, I came to realize that they are the best ambassadors for conserving the rain forests of the New Guinea region, the third largest remaining block of rain forest in the world (after the Amazon and Congo).
 
The local people of Papua realize that protecting their forest for the birds, and hosting visiting birders and other tourists to see them, is a way for them to receive a livelihood from the forest.  So my hope is that my photography and films of these birds can contribute to greater appreciation and thus conservation of Papua’s forest.  But at the moment, international travel to Papua is on hold.  The local guest house owners and birding guides that we work with there have no income. 
 
I know you’d like to help, and so would I.  So if you’d like to help and also own a Tim Laman print to brighten your home or workplace, please visit my online store at www.timlamanfineart.com.  You will find prices and sizes for all budgets and spaces.

Village leader Aren Mandacan (foreground) leads a group of birders to see birds-of-paradise in his forest in the Arfak Mountains.  He has been a pioneer in converting his village economy to be based on protecting forest, and creating revenue from offering guiding and guest houses for visiting birders and photographers.  This kind of grass-roots conservation can have a huge impact in Papua, where local people own the forest.
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Helmeted Hornbills for World Wildlife Day

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Helmeted Hornbills have interested me since I first saw one in Borneo in 1987.  But it took me years to capture the image I wanted of this spectacular but rare and little known bird of the Southeast Asian rainforest.  Read the story below of how I captured this favorite image.

Helmeted Hornbill Landing

To make this image possible, I trekked deep into a remote national park in Thailand, and worked closely with Dr. Pilai Poonswad and her team from the Thailand Hornbill Project.  I was allowed to set up a blind on the ground, and hide and wait for this male to deliver food to the female and chick inside the nest cavity in this tree.  Although the view was looking up, I was able to find a mostly green (and not sky) background to enhance the shot by putting my blind in just the right position.  The angle from below actually provided a great view of the birds whole anatomy as he flared out his wings to land, so that worked out well.  Realizing the landing would be the peak moment of action, I framed the shot to allow him space as he flared out on the approach.  Although he came several times to feed during the days I waited there, only on this one occasion did the framing turn out just the way I wanted to reveal this incredible species in all its glory.
           For the camera nerds in the group, I shot this on a RED Digital Cinema camera, and it is actually a single frame from motion capture.  If you watch the film linked below, you will see the shot that I pulled this from.  With this powerful camera, by shooting at 75 frames/sec at 6K resolution, I could not only capture a beautiful motion shot of the bird landing at its nest, but pull the perfect frame as the selected still image. 
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Happy New Year Friends!

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For a little inspiration as 2020 begins, I’m sharing a favorite winter image of a pair of Japan’s Red-crowned Cranes performing a duet.  Considered an auspicious symbol in Japan, cranes also have a lot of meaning for all of us who believe in the importance of protecting nature.  Their sheer elegance and beauty is unsurpassed, and I don’t think anyone would want to see them disappear.  But they almost did in Japan!  Now however, they are an example of a conservation success there, where their population has been brought back from near extermination in the early 1900’s to a healthy breeding population today through human determination and effort. 

The challenges that we face to protect nature are many, but I believe we are up to the task if we strive together.  Thanks for joining me on my journey as my cameras become our “windows” to see wildlife in some of the remote corners of the world that you may not get to yourselves.  Your interest and support make it all worthwhile, and I believe that together, we can spread awareness and make a difference.  Here’s to all the possibilities that lie ahead in the New Year for all of us.  Lets make it a great one! 

A Red-crowned Crane Pair Duet

A pair of Red-crowned Cranes perform a duet in a snowstorm in Hokkaido, Japan.  This behavior is part of their pair-bonding ritual.  Although it is mid-winter, they are making a commitment to work together to raise the next generation in the coming spring.
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Raja Ampat

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Dear Friends,  

One of the highlights of recent months has been a chance to dive and photograph in the Raja Ampat Islands.  If you are not familiar with Raja Ampat, they are the group of islands off the western tip of New Guinea, in the Indonesian province of West Papua.  I have been diving there since 2006, and documenting the incredible biodiversity of the marine environment in the Raja Ampat is one of my long-term projects.  It is a very special place, not only because it is the epicenter of marine biodiversity in the world, but also because it is a place where the rain forest meets the sea.  The marine and terrestrial landscape are part of the ambitious “Conservation Province” initiative by the West Papuan government, and I am working to promote this cause through my visual storytelling.

A magical place called Hidden Bay, Gam Island, in the Raja Ampat Islands.

Featured Photos:

The Raja Ampat Islands are mostly uplifted limestone.  This means little runoff and siltation from land, and thus corals that can grow right up to the edge of the forest.  This makes for really unique photographic opportunities.

Soft corals grow along the edge of mangrove forest in this split level view.
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Yasuni National Park, Ecuador

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Cobalt-winged Parakeets (Brotogeris cyanoptera) feeding on clay at the clay lick east of Anangu and south of the Napo River, Yasuni National Park, Orellana Province, Ecuador

For the January 2013 issue of National Geographic magazine, I was part of a team of five Nat Geo photographers including Ivan Kashinsky, Karla Gachet, David Liittschwager and Steve Winter.  We went to Ecuador for one month to document the biologically richest place on the planet, Yasuni National Park, and the important conservation issues and human cultural issues surrounding it.  Here is the feature story at Nat Geo.

You can see how all our efforts came together to tell the story in this interactive.

Also, Spencer Milsap of Nat Geo produced this video piece, which my assistant Anand Varma and I also helped to shoot.  It captures what it was like to work on this story in the Amazon rain forest of Ecuador.