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.

Orangutans

Orangutan Print Sale for Conservation

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2021 has been another unusual year, but I’m still feeling thankful.  This thanksgiving holiday, I want to help raise awareness and support for Orangutan Conservation in Borneo.  I hope you will take a moment to read on.  

As those of you who have followed my work for a while know, documenting the lives of wild orangutans in partnership with my wife, researcher Cheryl Knott, has been a major part of my life’s work over that past 25 years.  Using the media I create to spread the word in National Geographic articles and films has been a big part of what I do.  But it has now been two years since I was last in Borneo in documenting orangutans.  Yet, we are fortunate that the non-profit group Cheryl founded, now run in Indonesia by an Indonesian team of over thirty people, have been able to persist throughout the pandemic in their conservation, education, and community support activities that all help to protect orangutans in Gunung Palung, one of the world’s most important remaining wild orangutan sanctuaries. 

So I’m very thankful to them and for all their efforts, and I’m dedicating this newsletter and print-sale fundraiser to the Gunung Palung Orangutan Project!

Please scan below for ways you can help this important cause.

That Special Connection
Young orangutans typically spend eight years or more with their mothers, and this is my favorite image that captures that special connection.  I think it is also worth contemplating our close connection to orangutans and their rainforest habitat.  The future of orangutans and all the diverse life on earth is dependent on good decisions being made by us humans who have taken over so much of the planet.  Our individual decisions matter, and supporting groups actively working to accomplish conservation on the ground is one small way we can help.  
This photograph is available as a print along with all the other orangutan images on sale now for my Giving Tuesday fundraiser (I will donate 50% of profits from all orangutan print sales to the Gunung Palung Orangutan Project).

Ways You Can Help Support Orangutans

[Read more…] about Orangutan Print Sale for Conservation

Save Wild Orangutans and get a Free Print

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As many of you know, my longest term personal photography project is documenting the orangutans of Gunung Palung, in support of the science and conservation work of my wife Cheryl Knott’s project and her NGO, the Gunung Palung Orangutan Conservation Program (a US 501c3).

So it is my pleasure to offer some free prints to supporters this month.  We are attempting to build some “crowd sourced” funding for the organization, so that we can grow our education and conservation programs in the communities around the park, with the aim of long term forest and buffer zone preservation for orangutans and all the other biodiversity.

I hope you will consider becoming a monthly contributor.  Any small donation is welcome, but if you are able to commit to $10/month or more, you will receive your choice of one of three of my prints shown below in December, in time for Christmas.  So you could keep it for yourself or give it away as a gift!  Please go to this LINK to learn more and sign up. 

You’ll also become a member of our “Save Wild Orangutan” team as a monthly donor, and receive our exclusive updates from the field and blog posts for our members which I think you will enjoy.

Thanks for your consideration of this opportunity!

The Wild Ride
“The Wild Ride” is one of the my favorite orangutan images I have made in Gunung Palung for several reasons.  It tells the story of a mother orangutan traveling through the primary rainforest, which you can tell because of the massive size of the tree trunk in the left side fo the frame.  It shows how she is using large vines, or lianas, as the bridges through this complex canopy of trees, and finally, it shows how a very young infant has to be able to hold on tight to mom’s skin and fur all by herself because mom needs all her hands and feet for locomotion.  It is hard to explain how much effort was needed to capture an image like this.  It involves following the orangutans through the forest all day with the research team carrying camera gear, and looking for gaps through the foliage.  The best views are from hills I’ve scrambled up in steep terrain to be able to get shots that give you the feeling of being in the canopy with the orangutans (like in this shot) and not just looking up from the ground.  All the sweat is worth it though, when a great moment like this presents itself, and I’m able to capture it to share with all of you.

King of the Jungle

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In the Indonesian language, “orangutan” means “person of the forest”.  Of all my orangutan images, I think that this one captures the feeling of that name the most.  When you look into the eyes of this adult male orangutan in his prime, you can’t help wondering what he is thinking, and it is totally understandable that humans who encountered wild orangutans in the forest thought of them as the “people of the forest”.
Purchase “King of the Jungle” on my Fine Art website

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Dear Friends,

I’d like to wish you all belated greetings for the New Year.  It’s been a rather rocky start here in the USA to say the least, but I’m optimistic that better times are ahead, and that by some time later this year, we will be able to resume international travel, gathering in groups, and many other things that we have had to put on hold in 2020.

[Read more…] about

https://www.timlaman.com/wildlife-diaries/2021/01/3056/

Supporting Wild Orangutans of Gunung Palung

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This year has been a wild ride, but I’m still feeling thankful.  This thanksgiving holiday, I’ve decided that instead of focusing on Black Friday sales, I want to use the reach I have with my newsletter and social media to help raise awareness and support for Orangutan Conservation in Borneo.  So I hope you will take a moment to read on.

As those of you who have followed my work for a while know, documenting the lives of wild orangutans in partnership with my wife, researcher Cheryl Knott, has been a major part of my life’s work over that past 25 years.  Using the media I create to spread the word in National Geographic articles and films with NatGeo and the BBC has been a big part of what I do.  This is the first year that I have been unable to go to Borneo to continue this work.  Yet, we are fortunate that the non-profit group Cheryl founded, now run in Indonesia by an Indonesian team of over thirty people, have been able to persist throughout the pandemic in their conservation, education, and community support activities that all help to protect orangutans in Gunung Palung, one of the world’s most important remaining wild orangutan sanctuaries.

So I’m very thankful to them and for all their efforts, and I’m dedicating this newsletter and print-sale fundraiser to the Gunung Palung Orangutan Project!
Please scan below for ways you can help this important cause.

The Wild Ride
This image seems an appropriate metaphor for the wild ride we have all had this year.  I named this image “The Wild Ride” (way before the pandemic) because I find it quite amazing the way a baby orangutan, like this one-month old, needs to hold on all by herself while her mother travels high in the trees.  I especially like this image because it represents the primary rainforest of Borneo with giant trees, lianas, and truly wild orangutans living in their ideal habitat.  This is what we work to protect, so that intact populations of orangutans with all their cultural knowledge intact can persist for generations into the distant future.  

This photograph is available as a print along with other favorite orangutan images on sale now for my Giving Tuesday fundraiser (100% of profits will go to the Gunung Palung Orangutan Project, if you didn’t catch that already).
[Read more…] about Supporting Wild Orangutans of Gunung Palung

Tim Laman’s Wildlife Diaries – Join me in supporting Orangutan Conservation

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Dear Friends,
Today is Giving Tuesday, and I’d like to invite you to consider supporting the Gunung Palung Orangutan Conservation Program, a group that I support and work closely with. For all orangutan prints purchased from my store from now until the end of my Holiday Sale on December 8, I will donate 100% of proceeds to this NGO to support their work.

This includes my most famous orangutan image, “Entwined Lives” (below), winner of the 2016 Wildlife Photographer of the Year, and eight other favorite orangutan images in my Orangutan Gallery.  

An orangutan climbs the strangler fig roots running down the trunk of a tree deep in Gunung Palung National Park.  The unique perspective of this image captures an orangutan in the midst of its forest habitat, and thus represents what orangutans need most to survive – intact forest habitat.
[Read more…] about Tim Laman’s Wildlife Diaries – Join me in supporting Orangutan Conservation