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.

News

International Photo Festival at Montier en Der

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Dear Friends,

I have just returned from a great experience in France, where I was a special guest of honor at the International Photo Festival at Montier en Der.  It’s a unique festival with a hundred photographers exhibiting, and over 40,000 visitors over four days.  I selected twenty of my best rain forest bird images for my exhibition at the festival, in keeping with their forest theme.  I thought I’d share the story behind one of my new favorite images, that was also one of the crowd favorites.  See below.

Feathers of the Forest: Rainforest Birds

Rhinoceros Hornbill perched among ripe figs, Hala Bala Wildlife Sanctuary, Thailand.
[Read more…] about International Photo Festival at Montier en Der

Back from Indonesia

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Dear Friends,

I’m finally back home after an exciting two months of photography and filming in Indonesia. Its time to share a few highlights with you, and I’m going to start with some exciting news from Gunung Palung in Borneo, where I’ve been documenting my wife Cheryl Knott’s orangutan research for 25 years. Her project studies the entire population of wild orangutans in “GP” as we call it, but we get to know some individuals especially well, and none is more familiar to our team than a female named Walimah.

Featured Photos: Walimah – Then and Now

The first image was taken twenty years ago in 1999, when Walimah was a newborn infant. Walimah’s mother had a home range close to the research camp, and so we encountered her often and Walimah grew up seeing researchers on the ground below her as a normal part of her environment. So she has never been afraid of humans, and has been a great subject for my photography.

Baby Walimah – 1999

Some of you may be familiar, however, with the tragic turn of events in Walimah’s life in 2015. After the highlight of having her first baby in April that year, she was the apparent victim of an infanticidal attack by a rogue male orangutan (our best guess of what happened), and her first baby was lost. This story is documented in our 2016 film on NatGeo Wild Channel called “Mission Critical: Orangutan on the Edge” (and in a scientific paper by Cheryl and her team: Possible Male Infanticide in Wild Orangutans and a Re-evaluation of Infanticide Risk).

[Read more…] about Back from Indonesia

Thanks-A-Milllion Update

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Dear Friends,

In case you haven’t heard, I’ve been running a massive print sale in honor of hitting 1 million followers on Instagram!

And today I’m making it even bigger with two announcements:

  • New size! I’ve heard your emails asking for larger sizes, and have added a new 18×18″ option to my store – available for the first time ever. 
  • Collector discount! Use code WALLART at checkout for an additional 10% off any 4 prints from my Instagram sale, or an additional 20% off any 6 prints. Applies only to 15×15″ and 18×18″ sizes. 
[Read more…] about Thanks-A-Milllion Update

Happy New Year!

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As I write this, I’m headed South to finish off 2018 and start 2019 with a voyage to Antarctica as the National Geographic photographer aboard the Lindblad/NatGeo ship “National Geographic Explorer”.  It will be my fifth trip to Antarctica, and as always, I travel to the white continent with a great sense of excitement for the photographic potential, and for the chance to spend time in such a spectacular part of our planet.  Since wintery scenes always seem so appropriate for a holiday greeting, I’ve chosen one of my favorite images from a past Antarctica trip and will share its story with you here.

I made this image on my first voyage to Antarctica back in 2009.  We were cruising into the Weddell Sea when we spotted a massive, strangely shaped iceberg.  On approaching with the ship, these ice towers reminiscent of Monument Valley revealed themselves.  As we circled this natural ice sculpture, probably formed underwater and then surfacing when the iceberg flipped over, I saw the handful of Adelie Penguins, and framed my shot to include them at the bottom edge of the frame.  I love the way they give a sense of scale to the image, as well as instantly telling the story that we are in Antarctic waters.  I believe the success of the shot comes from using a long zoom to isolate this portion of the wider scene.  Photography is as much about what you leave out of the frame as what you put in.
[Read more…] about Happy New Year!

Tim Interviewed by USA Today

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This morning USA Today published a story on National Geographic’s Travel Flash Sale featuring Tim’s image.  Josh Hefner says, “National Geographic is synonymous with great photography, and few craft its jaw-dropping images like Tim Laman.”

The article describes Tim’s photo of two Japanese macaques in a hot spring.  His picture (above) is part of National Geographic’s flash sale that ends tomorrow.  You can purchase Tim’s signed image by going to National Geographic Creative’s webpage.