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.

Wildlife Diaries

August Winner and End-of-Summer Sale

by

Hope all of you in the Northern hemisphere have been having a good summer.  It’s been a different one for me, without the usual fieldwork in Indonesia, but I’ve been keep busy with more local projects as we all adapt to the times we find ourselves in.  Among other things here in the studio, we have been working to expand our offerings in my fine art print collection, so whether you might be interested in purchasing a print or not, I hope you will enjoy browsing the added variety in the galleries of some of my favorite images.  

Congratulations to Valarie S. for winning the Goldie’s Bird-of-Paradise square print.  For everyone else who was hoping to win the bird-of-paradise print but didn’t, your timing is good!  I am offering all open-edition prints at 25% off through the weekend in my End-of-Summer Sale. 

Verdin Among the Aloe
What makes a photograph rise beyond pure documentation and become something that can be called art, or at least an artistic image?  It can be a variety of things, and the way they combine together, but the quality of light often has a lot to do with it, along with the composition, how the background works to support the main subject, and other less tangible elements.  For me, this image of a Verdin perched among backlit aloe stems definitely achieves this.  More than anything in this image, it is the atmosphere created by the soft out-of-focus highlights on the aloe stems in the background that really give it a unique feel.  It’s one of my favorites from my time shooting at Sunnylands in the Coachella Valley, California.

Verdin Among the Aloe  is now available for purchase in my Fine Art Store.

Exploring California’s Kelp Forest

by

Over the summer, while out in California visiting family, we made a side trip to Catalina Island to do a few days of diving. I hadn’t been diving since the pandemic began, so it was great to get in the water, and get back to doing some underwater photography. As always, it was a great pleasure to explore a new natural area with my family. My son Russell has an internship with the diving organization Boston Sea Rovers this summer, and was working on his own underwater photography. And it was great to see Jessica, a newer diver, feeling super relaxed even in these chilly waters in a full wetsuit, marveling at the kelp forest and its inhabitants. Unlike on land, where we are stuck on the ground, (and climbing trees takes so much effort), being weightless and swimming among the underwater kelp forest is a truly amazing feeling. If you haven’t done it, I highly recommend it!

Garibaldi Among The Kelp

A garibaldi fish swims among giant kelp as sunbeams dance in the shallows of Catalina Island. I made this shot on my very first dive of our Catalina trip, in only about ten feet of water right near shore, but I think that of all the images I made on the trip, it best captures the feeling of this special place. Garibaldi are the state fish of California, and at this popular dive site, are very used to divers, so it was easy to get close to them with a wide angle lens. Their striking color of course adds a nice focal point to the image. The giant kelp is the dominant plant creating this unique habitat, capturing sunlight to grow incredibly fast. Backlighting those frond catching the sun, with the sun rays behind, just seemed to tell the story of this unique habitat.
[Read more…] about Exploring California’s Kelp Forest

The Making of “Loons of Mount Desert Island”.

by

It’s been a crazy year, but one of the perks for me has been working closer to home, and spending more time with family.  Last summer, I took on a project from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology to film the early lives of Common Loons up in Maine, and my children Russell and Jessica, 20 and 16 at the time, were my crew.  We maintained our “covid bubble” while working out of a small cabin on Mount Desert Island.  Loons are spectacular and fascinating birds, and it was an amazing experience to spend so much quality time with them every day as we worked to tell their story.  Russell and I did the filming, and Jessica helped out in the field, made sketches and behavior observations, and then narrated the film.  So it was a true family project.  We are really happy with the result, and I think you’ll enjoy spending ten minutes with us as we explore the loon’s world.  The link is below…. Enjoy!

I’ve also selected a couple of my favorite still frames from the shoot to share here, and you can scroll down further to see a bunch of behind the scenes shots from the trip, and learn a bit more about how we filmed the loons in Maine.

 “Loon Birthday” 
This baby loon emerged from its egg during the night or early morning, and after a few hours in the nest, without ever being fed, walked down the ramp into the water and started swimming after its parents.  By afternoon they were feeding it small fish.  Loons rarely go on land except to breed.  They are strictly water birds, and this chick is no exception.  It may never set foot on land again until it begins nesting as a full adult.  It was amazing to witness and film the first day of this little chicks life, and the film features a sequence of it being fed its first fish.
[Read more…] about The Making of “Loons of Mount Desert Island”.

Dreaming of Africa

by

I think I see the light at the end of the tunnel!  Where are you dreaming of traveling to?  I have many places on my list.  It may be a little while yet, but the first place I will head back to internationally will definitely be Borneo, to continue coverage of the orangutans and biodiversity of Gunung Palung National Park.  But many other places are also calling, and the wonders of East Africa are certainly among them.  I have many fond memories of my safaris there, and hope to go back soon.  In the mean time, we have been working on expanding my Limited Edition collection in my fine art gallery, and I’m excited to announce the addition of the image below.

The Vulture Tree
One hot, hazy afternoon in the Serengeti in 2018, we were driving around in our vehicle, but it wasn’t exactly the time of day when I expected to make an outstanding wildlife image.  But then we spotted this lone Ruppel’s vulture, perched in this old dead tree, which was a beautiful piece of sculpture in itself.  The vulture had its wings spread partially, in a posture that likely was helping get some airflow over his body to help it cool off.  I carefully directed our driver to get us into a position where the branches formed the best framing around the vulture.  The hazy afternoon light added the atmosphere and the slightly ocher color palette.  The resulting image ended up being one of my Limited Edition prints.
A Few Other Favorites from Africa

Here are a few other favorites from Africa that are in my Limited Edition Collection:

A herd of wildebeest cross the Mara River during their annual migration.  Serengeti National Park, Tanzania.
[Read more…] about Dreaming of Africa

Revealing the Magnificent Bird-of-Paradise Display

by

One of the most exciting things about what I do is having a chance to reveal aspects of animal behavior that haven’t been seen before.  A couple years ago, my long time bird-of-paradise collaborator Ed Scholes of the Cornell Lab and I made another expedition to the Arfak Mountains in West Papua, with the aim of documenting the Magnificent Bird-of-Paradise display from the female perspective – in other words, from above looking down at the displaying male.  We succeeded, and it’s been some time in coming out, but I’m thrilled to share that our footage now features in a brand new documentary on Netflix “LIFE IN COLOR with David Attenborough”.  Please check it out.  In the images and short video below, I share  the “reveal” of what the female sees – a perspective that we think is a first for natural history filmmaking on this species.

The Magnificent Bird-of-Paradise Display Pose
When in full display posture, the male Magnificent Bird-of-Paradise transforms himself into this unusual shape as he leans back from his small sapling perch.  His yellow cape fans out and is held over his head like a Jesus halo, and his green breast shield is spread into a broad oblong, with a striking blue banded “necktie” pattern down the middle.  Meanwhile, his two tail wires vibrate below him, adding to the spectacle.  Although we and others have photographed this species before from ground level, no-one (to our knowledge) has ever rigged a camera up above the display court looking down to catch the view the way a female sees it.  With our years of experience with birds-of-paradise, we have learned how to choose the right location and deploy hidden cameras without disturbing the birds to capture never-before-seen views like this!  After rigging our cameras in the dark, I filmed from the side, while Ed triggered the overhead camera to catch this moment.
[Read more…] about Revealing the Magnificent Bird-of-Paradise Display

King of the Jungle

by

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