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

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.
[Read more…] about Happy New Year Friends!

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.
[Read more…] about Raja Ampat

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.

YUS Conservation Area

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In January of 2009, The YUS Conservation Area in Papua New Guinea became the first of its kind.  More than 35 villages agreed to protect this area, named after the three rivers: the Yopno, Uruwa, and Som, to prohibit logging, hunting and mining.  You can find out more in the article Tim wrote and photographed in the August/September 2010 issue of National Wildlife.  If you missed the issue you can see the whole thing at the NWF website.

Mangroves On The Edge?

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Tim’s mangrove images are featured in the summer issue of The Nature Conservancy magazine.  The opening spread of the mangroves feature is an aerial view of the Sarawak Mangrove Reserve near Kuching, Malaysia.

Mangroves opening spread in Summer TNC

Tim also has a photo essay with 6 different images, each representing a different aspect of the mangroves.  Below is the opening image on restoration.

Also included in the essay are images on harvest, range, biodiversity, protection and threats.