Tim Laman

Photography & Exploration | 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.

Wildlife Diaries

Backyard Bird Inspiration

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Finding inspiration in nature, and sharing it with others, is part of everything I do.  This crazy Covid year has given me a chance to find some of that inspiration closer to home, and I wanted to share a little with you this week.  Like many of you I’m sure, I have had bird feeders in my back yard for years.  But I haven’t focused much effort on photographing the birds that frequent my yard.  When it snowed back in April though, and then again in late October in a freak early snowstorm here in Massachusetts, the peaceful, beautiful backdrop for these common birds really got me going on photographing them.  So please enjoy the images below. 
 
When you take time to pay attention and learn more about your backyard birds, you’ll find they’re pretty amazing, like I a few things I learned reading more about chickadees that I share below.

Backyard Beauties
Blue Jay on a Snowy Day.  Blue Jay feathers have structural color that reflect blue light, and almost seem to glow in certain even lighting like this.
Cardinal on Snow Covered Branches.  Although I’ve traveled the world seeking out exotic birds, I’m still stunned by the color of the cardinals!
[Read more…] about Backyard Bird Inspiration

A Moment of Nature’s Beauty: The “Bird-of-Paradise Sunrise”

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Dear Friends,

To celebrate the launching of my Limited Editions prints, I’d like to share a behind the scenes video about how I made what is perhaps my most famous image, the Bird-of-Paradise Sunrise. 

This video from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, featuring my colleague Ed Scholes and me, tells the story behind this shot.

[Read more…] about A Moment of Nature’s Beauty: The “Bird-of-Paradise Sunrise”

Wildlife Diaries 15

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My large format LIMITED EDITION prints are now available for subscribers only.  Please email studio@timlaman.comto receive a private website link and have a look.  No obligation of course!

Dear Friends,
 
If you have never been to the rainforest of Southeast Asia, and heard the loud wing-beats of Rhinoceros Hornbills flying over the canopy, I highly recommend a journey after we get through this pandemic.  In the mean time, I thought I’d share my image and story with you below.

Rhinoceros Hornbill
On my very first day in the rain forest of Borneo, back in 1987, the first spectacular rain forest bird that I got a glimpse of was a Rhinoceros Hornbill.  I was on the ground, the bird was high in the canopy, and I could barely see it with my binoculars.  I remember thinking how some day I wanted to find a way to photograph this amazing bird up at its level.  Well, years past, I learned how to climb giant rain forest trees with ropes, and spent scores of days in the canopy.  My first article in National Geographic was about the rain forest canopy in Borneo, and featured a Rhinoceros Hornbill as the opening shot.  So I’ve had a special relationship with this bird for decades.  It is still one of my favorite birds to photograph, a true icon of the lowland forests Borneo and Southeast Asia.  I captured this moment in Thailand in 2018, from yet another blind hidden in the canopy of an adjacent tree overlooking a fig tree absolutely loaded with fruit.  This moment came when the hornbill stuck its head up through some branches, and was looking around for the ripest fig to pluck.
[Read more…] about Wildlife Diaries 15

The Mara River Leap

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A handful of you were with me that day in August 2018 when I captured the image below.  For those who weren’t, I hope that some day you have a chance to witness this spectacle yourself!  In the mean time, please enjoy this brief account of how the image came together.

The Mara River Leap
There are certain iconic wildlife spectacles around the world that I think probably all wildlife photographers and wildlife enthusiasts would like to see in their lifetimes.  The Serengeti wildebeest migration was certainly one of those for me, and in particular, the crossing of the Mara River was something I wanted to witness for myself.  It was August 2018 when I had the opportunity.  We were hanging back, waiting as the animals massed on the crest of the bank.  Then suddenly they surged.  It was chaos.  They poured down the cliffs and into the river. I knew that the challenge was to extract a moment from this wild scene.  I was shooting as fast as I could, but looking for patterns.  I saw a little ledge part way down the bank that some animals were launching from, becoming briefly separated from the background, and I framed just that section of the scene for a time.  Soon, it was all over.  Thousands of wildebeest had crossed the river in a matter of minutes.  The dust still hung in the air, but I knew that this time, I had been in the right place at the right time, and captured something special.
[Read more…] about The Mara River Leap

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.
[Read more…] about Wildlife Diaries 13

Filming Loon Families in Acadia

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Dear Friends,

As I reported in my last newsletter, I had a chance to spend time filming in Maine’s Acadia National Park and vicinity for the Cornell Lab of Ornithology this summer.  Besides peregrine falcons, the other primary focus was to document breeding pairs of loons and their chicks.  This was a partnership with the Somes-Meynell Wildlife Sanctuary [www.somesmeynell.org] who not only allowed us to film on their private reserve near the park, but also helped guide us to good locations for filming other pairs of loons on territories all over Mt. Desert Island, so a huge thanks goes out to Billy Helprin of Somes-Meynell.

Our video for the Cornell Lab is currently in production, but in the mean time, I’d like to share a few images.  Loons are an iconic species of the North, and a true indicator of a healthy environment, and it was a pleasure to spend time with them.  A real highlight was being able to see chicks from hatching through several weeks of age, and document their rapid growth and development.  Enjoy!

Featured Photos

Loon chicks leave the nest the day they hatch, and can immediately swim, like this one-day-old with its attentive parents.
Loon parents work hard to feed their chicks, and they grow rapidly, but sometimes the fish come so fast, they can’t get the chicks to take another bite.
[Read more…] about Filming Loon Families in Acadia