New Film and Story: Saving Mexico's Endangered Macaws
Last year I had an assignment from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology to go to Chiapas, Mexico, and work with the non-profit group Natura Mexicana, to make a short film about their work trying to save the endangered Scarlet Macaws. My son Russell joined me as our second cameraman, and we worked with the awesome team from Natura Mexicana to document their work and the beautiful macaws. Our film is now finished and is live on their website: https://www.naturamexicana.org.mx
Natura Mexicana are taking a unique approach to a challenging situation. Poachers are stealing chicks for the illegal wildlife trade. Other solutions having failed, the conservationists are pulling young chicks from the nests before the poachers get them, and hand-rearing them. It’s a labor of love, but its working and over 200 chicks have been raised and released. Adults don’t make good pets, so once free and wild, the birds are safe from poachers.
You can read the full story on the National Geographic website
Ultimately of course, these drastic measures are only a stopgap solution. We need to educate people and remove the demand for wild-caught parrots as pets so this illegal wildlife trade will end. It was great to have the opportunity to work with Russell to help tell this story, and I hope you will watch the video and read the story and share it with others. Awareness and education is the only way we can eventually solve this problem.
Below I share a few more images from our coverage in Mexico.
Primary Colors in Flight
More Outtakes from our Macaw Story
Macaws form long-term pair bonds and are constantly hanging out with and interacting with their mates.
Scarlet macaws nest in natural tree cavities, and both parents take turns bringing food back for the chicks once they have hatched. Here one adult waits for the other to emerge from the nest cavity so it can go in.
Beating the poachers at their own game, researcher Raul Mendez climbs a rope to a nest site to remove a chick for captive rearing, placing it in a bucket to lower to the ground.
Once a chick has been brought into captivity, there are many weeks of intense labor involved to raise it by hand. Here Griselda Quintana and Rodrigo Leon feed chicks at the captive rearing facility.
It was great working with my son Russell on the shoot. He is an accomplished photographer in his own right, and captured some unique images like this one that added to our coverage. You can see more of his work at www.russlaman.com.
As always, thanks for tuning in. As I mentioned above, please share the links to our film and article, and help spread the word about the crisis of the illegal wildlife trade. Only awareness and education can bring these cruel practices to a halt, and allow birds like the Scarlet Macaw to raise their young in the wild the way they are supposed to.
Best regards to all!
Tim Laman
PS. We continue to add new images and update our galleries at TimLamanFineArt.com throughout the year, so be sure to take a look from time to time and see what’s new. Thanks!
PPS. If you are a wildlife photography enthusiast or know one, do check out my online courses at “Bird Photography Masterclass” I can be your guide to help take your photography to the next level. Available as gifts as well.
New Borneo Story, and a Tale of Two Covers
I hope your 2024 is off to a good start. A highlight for me has been the publication in the Feb 2024 issue of National Geographic magazine of my story “Borneo’s Wild Green Heart”, written by long time NatGeo contributor Jennifer Holland. When so much news out of Borneo is about forest loss, this is a positive story about an amazing rainforest area that still retains its full complement of biodiversity, from orangutans to flying frogs to clouded leopards and the giant dipterocarps and other trees that create the habitat for all this life to thrive.
This story is a very personal one, since I first went to Gunung Palung way back in 1987 as a student volunteer with Prof. Mark Leighton at Harvard, and subsequently, my wife Cheryl Knott has carried on her orangutan research and conservation program there for 30 years. Our kids Russell and Jessica grew up spending summers there with us, and now things have come full circle, and Russell, a successful photographer in his own right, captured the dramatic opening shot you see below!
I hope you enjoy the article, which you can read online at NatGeo, if you don't receive the magazine in the mail.
The opening spread of my story about Gunung Palung National Park in Borneo features an image made by my son Russell, who assisted me on the shoot, and did a lot of the drone photography. Working in cooperation with National Park staff and Indonesian drone pilot Tri Wahyu Susanto, we carefully familiarized this particular orangutan with our small drone by initially flying it at a distance from her but letting her see it and get used to it over a period of days. She is a female named Bibi who has been followed regularly by the research team for many years. At first curious about the drone, she soon ignored it completely, allowing us to get into position to capture a unique image that shows an orangutan feeding high in the canopy in the context of her environment - the intact lowland rainforest of Gunung Palung.
Photo by Russell Laman (@RussLaman on Instagram).
A TALE OF TWO COVERS
Wallace’s Flying Frog is one of the most famous and unique creatures found in Borneo’s rainforest, but extremely hard to find. It can’t really “fly” of course, but has the ability to use the huge surface area of its webbed feet as airfoils, and make controlled glides between trees. In October 2000, my fourth story was published in National Geographic magazine on “Borneos Wild Gliders”, and Wallace’s Flying Frog made the cover. It was my first NatGeo cover, and a very exciting moment in my early photography career. As editor Bill Allen said to me at the time, I had proven my ability to come back with images of nearly impossible subjects, because I had managed to get photos of not just Wallace’s Flying Frog gliding, but many other curious gliding species in Borneo that featured in that story.
Fast forward over twenty years, I was back in Borneo working on the coverage for my new story about Gunung Palung National Park, and we managed to find another Wallace’s Flying Frog and capture an image mid-glide. It didn’t make the cover of the US edition this time, but as you can see above, it adorns the cover of the international edition published in Indonesia. It’s a fitting tribute to the amazing biodiversity of Indonesia, and the young Indonesian biologists who helped me in the field. I hope this story continues to build pride and enthusiasm among our Indonesian colleagues who hold the future of their magnificent rainforest in their hands.
A FEW IDEAS FOR 2024
If you are into lifelong learning, supporting good causes, and being inspired, here are a few ideas for you to consider for 2024.
- Sign up for the “Save Wild Orangutans” Newsletter.
savewildorangutans.org
Every month, the team from the Gunung Palung Orangutan Conservation Program puts out their “Code Red” newsletter reporting on their activities, discoveries, and events in and around Gunung Palung National Park in West Kalimantan, Indonesia. It’s a wonderful window into the lives of wild orangutans and the people working to study them and protect their habitat and ensure that the communities around Gunung Palung are also thriving. The newsletter if free, but I hope you will be inspired to become a monthly contributor. It feels good to be making a small contribution to orangutan conservation each month, even if its just the price of one fancy coffee.
- Sign up for the “Lukas Guides” Newsletter.
https://www.lukasguides.com
Every week, David Lukas, a gifted naturalist, thinker, and extraordinarily curious observer of nature publishes a newsletter with his unique insights and research into a topic that takes his fancy. I look forward to these quick reads, where I always learn something that I find myself thinking about later when I’m out in the field. David’s newsletter is free, but if you find it as worthwhile to read as I do, he offers an option to be a paid subscriber to support his work and receive other benefits. Do check it out. - Commit to Improving Your Photography.
Are you interested in photographing wildlife? In the photo workshops that I sometimes teach for Lindblad/NatGeo Expeditions, I find that many photographers are obsessing about camera settings and not focusing on thinking creatively in the field about the elements that make a strong wildlife image. So I created my own online course called “Bird Photography Masterclass: The Creative Process”. It could be just the thing to help you take your photography to a whole new level this year. And for being a newsletter subscriber, I’m offering you an additional 25% off the price right now. Just visit the course page at the link below, and use the code 25percent at checkout. There is also an option to give the course as a gift. Valentines day is coming up. Just saying!
As always, thanks for tuning in. I wish you all a healthy, happy, and successful 2024.
Warmest regards,
Tim Laman
PS. We continue to add new images and update our galleries at TimLamanFineArt.com throughout the year, so be sure to take a look from time to time and see what’s new. Thanks!
Birds-of-Paradise and Strangler Figs - Papua Expedition Highlights Part 2
Following our pursuit of the Leatherback Sea Turtles that I shared in the last Wildlife Diaries, our team moved into the interior of Western Papua, where we immersed ourselves in the riches of the lowland rainforest at a small village called Malagufuk. From our base at a small guesthouse, it was a matter of a few steps and we were in the forest. Our main targets were several species of Birds-of-Paradise, but we also hoped to film other lowland specialists, like crowned pigeons, hornbills, and even cassowaries if we were lucky.
However, the plant life could not to be ignored! The forest abounded with spectacularly large strangler figs and many beautiful species of palms, so we also spent time trying to photograph and film them in interesting ways. You can see a few of my efforts below as well as a few bird shots. Western Papua, and the entire giant island of New Guinea of which it is a part, still harbors vast areas of forest, which is heart-warming to see as a conservationist. Our main objective of this expedition in fact was to bring attention to this globally important area, which represents the largest intact rainforest region in the entire Asia-Pacific, and the third biggest in the world after the Amazon and Congo basins. Both as a carbon store, and for its rich and relatively understudied biodiversity, these forests represent a global treasure.
Hope you enjoy the glimpses below into the lowland forest of Papua!
Inside the Strangler Fig
To capture this image, I stepped within the myriad of roots, and pointed my camera straight up. I was in the space once occupied by the host tree, long since rotted away. I’ve been fascinated with strangler figs ever since I first went to Borneo, and in fact I did my PhD research on fig ecology in Borneo’s rainforest. These trees start life as a seedling sprouting high on a host tree, their seed perhaps delivered in a bird dropping. They send roots down to the ground, and in the case of this species (there are many species of figs with different growth forms) the roots wrap the host tree so tightly that it eventually dies and rots away. The fig keeps growing and spreading ever wider roots, creating the incredible and rather artistic structure you see here.
Life in the Lowland Rainforest
This spectacular palm in the genus Licuala, was one of many beautiful palms that graced the understory.
Climbing plants of all types festoon the forest, from small vines like these on a tree trunk to huge woody lianas.
Images clockwise from top left:
- A beautiful caterpillar climbs a mossy tree trunk. We only scratched the surface in documenting the invertebrates, but this was a spectacular find.
- This curious looking Rufous Owl was a nice surprise. It is a typical species of lowland rainforest.
- An explosion of plumes is the illusion that a male Lesser BoP creates when he shakes all those feathers above his back. Note that his plumes are greatly elongated and modified flank feathers, not tail feathers as many assume. You can see where they originate in this shot. His tail is brown and is tucked under the branch.
- The Lesser Bird-of-Paradise was a primary target, and I was able to photograph at this lek where three spectacular adult males performed in unison in the foggy early morning light. They prefer display branches just under the canopy, so they are not an easy species to get a clear view of, even by climbing a tree. But by climbing intermediate trees and doing a little judicious pruning, I was able to create a window that afforded this view from the ground. You’ll want to stay tuned when we release the video!
Behind-the-Scenes
Here is a view of the strangler fig tree in the featured photo above, shot from the side.
I couldn’t resist setting up this self-portrait with this amazing fig tree, and it should also give you a sense of scale.
Thanks for tuning in to my adventures. Please feel free to share this newsletter with anyone who you think might enjoy it. I need your help to spread the word and raise awareness about the importance of Papua’s forests!
Warmest regards,
Tim Laman
PS. We will continue to add new images and galleries to TimLamanFineArt.com throughout the year, so be sure to take a look from time to time and see what’s new. Thanks!
A New Baby Orangutan and Happy New Year 2023!
Dear Friends,
Happy New Year, and all the best to everyone for 2023!
As we kick off the new year, I have some exciting news from my recent trip to Borneo. On Dec 11, as I was already packing up to depart the next morning from the research station in Gunung Palung National Park, I got word that one of the field assistants had found the female orangutan named Berani, and that she had a new baby! Luckily, I was able to rearrange my travel to spend two days photographing Berani and her new baby before traveling home.
The research team had been tracking Berani’s pregnancy since the summer. We first suspected she was pregnant in June 2022, but were unable to get definitive results. By August, when we tested her urine again, the pregnancy test came back with clear results – positive! When the team found her again on December 11th, Berani was with a tiny new infant, who we believe is only a few weeks old.
The team has known Berani since 2008, when she was first found with her mother, Bibi. She was likely 3-4 years old at the time. By 2013, Berani had become independent from her mother, and in 2015 Berani’s younger brother, Bayas, was born. Now, we will be able to follow development not only of Bayas, who is now 7 years old, but Bibi’s new granddaughter, giving us more opportunities to follow and understand juvenile development in wild orangutans, who have the longest birth intervals of any mammals on the planet.
Milestones like these remind us how incredible and rewarding long-term research projects are. It is thanks to continued support from Indonesian counterparts and sponsors, as well as an international base of supporters and donors, that we are able to continue this important research!
As we start the new year, I’d like to invite you to become a regular supporter of our orangutan research and conservation work in the Gunung Palung area if you are not already. The website www.SaveWildOrangutans.org is your portal to learn all about our work.
By joining us, you will receive our monthly newsletter, and know you are making a contribution to the long-term protection of orangutans and all the biodiversity in the amazing Gunung Palung landscape. If we can get enough people making small contributions, even $5 per month (the price of one fancy coffee), it will really make a difference for the programs that our project can carry out.
As an extra incentive to becoming a monthly contributor, if you join before Jan 10 contributing $10 or more, you will receive one of my 12 inch orangutan prints of your choice in April, 2023.
This link will take you right to the “JOIN US” page for Save Wild Orangutans. https://www.savewildorangutans.org/join-us/
Berani’s New Baby
Here are a few more shots of the newest addition to the healthy population of WILD orangutans in Gunung Palung:
A newborn baby orangutan has to be able to hold on to mom’s hair and skin from birth. Berani’s new baby seem to have a good grip with her hands, but we saw her flailing a lot with her little feet to get a good grip.
Berani was constantly touching her baby, to make sure she had a secure grip.
When she needed her hands for feeding or travel, Berani often held her baby against her belly with a foot, like you can see in this photo.
It was hard to get a glimpse of the baby’s face which always seemed to be buried in mom’s chest. But when Berani traveled upright along this branch, we finally caught a glimpse of the baby’s tiny face. We believe she is less than two weeks old when this photo was taken on Dec 11, 2022. It will be exciting to follow her growth and development over the coming years as our long term research continues.
Thanks for reading, and thanks for your support!
UPCOMING IN 2023!
Are you an underwater photography enthusiast? Would you like to dive with me in the Raja Ampat Islands of Indonesia, one of the world’s most spectacular diving destinations and a paradise for underwater photography? I’m leading an underwater photo workshop at @Papua_Explorers resort from 6-16 August 2023 with underwater photographer @Kizilkaya_Zafer. Learn all about it at this Link: https://www.papuaexplorers.com/underwater-photography-workshop/
Orangutan Print Sale for Conservation
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.
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
1) Become a supporting member of the Save Wild Orangutans initiative. Commit to a monthly donation of any amount from $5 on up to support the conservation efforts and receive our periodic blog updates. Check it out here:
2) Buy an orangutan print to support the cause and give yourself a nice reminder of your support for orangutan conservation. Or give a print as a gift! I am donating 50% of profits from orangutan print sales to Save Wild Orangutans until Dec 1 (Giving Tuesday). All prints in my orangutan gallery are on sale, but here are a few examples:
12 inch square prints are on sale for $105, including “Live Streaming - Borneo 2020”, which was our most popular print during last years’ fundraiser. A fun print to hang in your bathroom, perhaps??
12 inch square prints are on sale for $105, including “Live Streaming - Borneo 2020”, which was our most popular print during last years’ fundraiser. A fun print to hang in your bathroom, perhaps??
30 inch prints are now $350!
As the year winds down, there are good signs of hope for a better year ahead for all of us and let’s hope for orangutans as well. Thanks for your support, and please do whatever you can to help spread the word for orangutan conservation. As Margaret Mead famously said, “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has”
I believe that. Let’s do this together.
Happy Thanksgiving to all,
Tim
PS. If you’d like to learn more about our orangutan conservation and research work, here are the key websites:
Save Wild Orangutans – the portal for our community of supporters
Gunung Palung Orangutan Project home page
Birds-of-Paradise and Orangutan Fundraiser is Live
As we near the holiday season I’m reminded once again of how fortunate my family and I have been to weather this pandemic relatively unscathed. I hope you have been as fortunate, though I’m sure some of you suffered losses of loved ones, and my heartfelt sympathies go out to you. It’s been a tough couple years.
As we get through this, I am feeling like I want to devote some energy and resources to helping out the people and conservation activities that I care deeply about in Indonesia, where things have been especially tough. The best way I can come up with to do that, is to raise funds by selling my art, so I want to let you know that for all bird-of-paradise and orangutan print purchases during my Holliday Sale, which is now live, I will donate 50% of profits to the two charities that I have been supporting the Gunung Palung Orangutan Conservation Program, and Papua Konservasi dan Komunitas.
Please visit my online gallery through the link below, and consider a purchase for yourself or as a gift. You can read more about the two organizations in the links below as well.
Vogelkop Superb Bird-of-Paradise Performing is now available for purchase in my fine art store HERE.
Collecting Square Bird-of-Paradise Prints
Many of my Bird-of-Paradise images crop very nicely to a square format, and we have been offering a growing selection of square prints starting at 12x12 inches. These very affordable prints ($150 discounted to $105 each during the Holiday Sale), are striking when displayed in a grouping of 2, 3, or 4. They make a great conversation piece, brighten up any space, and proceeds help to support bird-of-paradise conservation. And if you already have one or two, you can add more and display them in various groupings which I have enjoyed doing around my house.
See the “Birds-of-Paradise Square Prints Collection” HERE, and help support Bird-of-Paradise conservation.
Thanks for tuning in and considering joining my fundraiser. If you’d like to learn more about the conservation groups I’m supporting and what they are doing, here are their individual websites.
I will follow up soon with another newsletter sharing more about the Gunung Palung Orangutan Project and their work that I am supporting.
Stay safe everyone, and be sure to get your dose of nature therapy!
Warmest regards,
Tim Laman
PS. We have added Greeting Cards to our store this holiday season especially featuring my birds in the snow images. You can customize the inside, and get discounts for boxes of 10 or 25. Check them out HERE.
Wildlife Diaries 13
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.
Details: Labor Day Print Sale to Benefit Papua through Wednesday September 16th
Some of you may recall that last spring I ran a print sale to raise funds for the local people in Papua (the land of birds-of-paradise) who lost their income due to covid and the lack of birders and photographers like me visiting. Thanks to you, we distributed over $3000 in aid directly to over a dozen village families we work with in the form of unemployment compensation and food care packages of rice and other staples. We work with a small local NGO run by volunteers that takes no overhead at all. Of course we all hoped the pandemic would be under control by now and international visitors would be traveling to Papua again by now, but this obviously hasn’t happened. So we would really like to be able to continue to give these folks some more support.
Once again, I’ll donate 50% of Bird-of-Paradise print proceeds to the local people in Papua who look after their forests as a way to have a livelihood from guiding birding trips. By helping these people, your purchase will also help safeguard the forests of Papua for the birds. Please order by Wednesday September 16th. Thanks for your support!
I have a wide selection of both full frame images, and my popular square-cropped Bird-of-Paradise series. Here are just a couple examples. Please visit the online gallery to see the full selection at www.timlamanfineart.com.
Thanks for your support, and stay safe everyone!
Tim
Helmeted Hornbills for World Wildlife Day
Helmeted Hornbills have interested me since I first saw one in Borneo in 1987. But it took me years to capture the image I wanted of this spectacular but rare and little known bird of the Southeast Asian rainforest. Read the story below of how I captured this favorite image.
Helmeted Hornbill Landing
For the camera nerds in the group, I shot this on a RED Digital Cinema camera, and it is actually a single frame from motion capture. If you watch the film linked below, you will see the shot that I pulled this from. With this powerful camera, by shooting at 75 frames/sec at 6K resolution, I could not only capture a beautiful motion shot of the bird landing at its nest, but pull the perfect frame as the selected still image.
Helmeted Hornbills have been a major focus of my wildlife photojournalism efforts in recent years. In addition to articles in National Geographic magazine and Living Bird, I collaborated with the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and Rangkong Indonesia to produce a short film called “Hunting the Helmeted Hornbill”. I’m excited to announce that since premiering last year at Mountainfilm, this film has been circulating to different film festivals. Most recently, it was featured at the New York Wild Film Festival on Feb 29, and then on March 3, World Wildlife Day, it was a finalist in the United Nations Development Program’s film showcase event at UN Headquarters. It’s important and exciting that this film is getting out there and reaching more people. It's 12 minutes long, and features not only footage of wild helmeted hornbills, but tells the story of the poaching pressure they face. If you haven’t viewed it, you can now watch it on the Cornell Lab’s YouTube channel here:
Hunting The Helmeted Hornbill
And please share this film with your network, especially if you have any connections in Asia, where the hornbill products are primarily consumed. We even have a version in Chinese so please reach out if you would like to share that one. The best way we can reduce hornbill poaching is by educating potential consumers about the source of these products and the harm they are doing by buying them. I hope that together we can make a different for this iconic species.
Gallery Update: We regularly add new images to my galleries at www.timlamanfineart.com. Recent additions include hummingbirds from Sunnylands added to the open edition paper prints category, and also a collection of favorite East Africa images from my recent trips. Please have a look!
Warm regards to all!
Tim
Happy New Year Friends!
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!
Website Update:
I’ve revamped my website with a lot more information about my projects and with new galleries of my work. You can also read my past Wildlife Diaries newsletter posts archived there, and see a lot more behind-the-scenes content. Hope you enjoy it, and maybe find a little inspiration yourselves for your own photography, your conservation endeavors, or life in general!
www.TimLaman.com
Raja Ampat
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.
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.
The possibilities for exploring the marine life of Raja Ampat are truly unlimited. We have just started to scratch the surface, and there is so much research to be done. As the world’s epicenter of marine biodiversity, it is so important to document, study, and spread the word about protecting this amazing place. So please follow along as I continue to work in this region. And if some of you are inclined to join me at some point, please see the workshop announcement below.
Future Workshop – Underwater Photography:
Are you fascinated by the Raja Ampat region and also an experienced diver passionate about improving your underwater photography? I am planning an exclusive workshop in the region for a small group in July 2020 with colleague Zafer Kizilkaya. Drop an email to office@timlaman.com if you have any interest in learning more and we will keep you posted as details develop.
Gallery Update
My solo exhibition of photographic works from Walden Pond is now on display at the Walden Pond Visitor Center in Concord, Massachusetts, and will be up for the entire fall season. Please check it out if you are in the area. We have also added a lot more options to my online Fine Art print store, including the Walden Pond Collection, so please check it out.
Thanks for reading, and best wishes to all.
Tim
Mission Critical: Orangutan On The Edge Premiers on Earth Day
This Friday at 9 pm, the Nat Geo Wild Channel will premier Tim's show on Orangutans. As you can see below, if you check out their website now you can view clips from the show along with a slideshow of Tim's images. Learn about Orangutans and Tim's mission to save them at Nat Geo Wild's website.
Yasuni National Park, 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
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?
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.
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.
Red List Species of the Day
The IUCN is celebrating the International year of Biodiversity 2010 by creating the Species of the Day. Today Tim's image of the Panay Monitor Lizard (Varanus mabitang) is used for Species of the Day. The Panay Monitor Lizard is an endangered species endemic to Panay Island in the Philippines. To learn more go to Species of the Day.
Foja Mountains Article Hits Newsstands
The June issue of National Geographic is out. Check out Tim's article "Discovery in the Foja Mountains" on page 110. It illustrates the wide diversity of species and what it took to study the remarkable area.
Also, to go along with the NG story was a press release. You can read the articles and view some pictures on the web at TIME or Conservation International.