Happy Spring to All!
Greetings as we welcome the official first day of spring here in the North!
For you photographers in the group, especially you aspiring wildlife photographers, I am excited to announce that I have just completed the second of my online courses in my “Bird Photography Masterclass” series, and it is now live. In this new course, which I have called “Birds, Camera, Action” I share the camera settings and techniques I use for successful bird photography, especially focusing on how I shoot birds in flight.
In an effort to get sales going, and since I know some of you may be eager to get out and work on improving your bird photography this spring, I’m releasing this course with a special introductory price of only $49 for a limited time!
Follow the link below to learn more, and sign up before March 29 to get this special price.
Spring Art Sale and Fundraiser
To celebrate the start of spring and give you a chance to freshen up your decor, I’m putting my entire selection of open edition prints on sale for 25% off.
Also, to continue my support of orangutan conservation in Borneo, I will donate 100% of sales from all the prints in my Orangutans Gallery from now till Earth Day April 22 to the Gunung Palung Orangutan Conservation Program, also known online as @SaveWildOrangutans. So please consider making a purchase to support a good cause.
Here are a Few of my Favorites
An orangutan climbs into the canopy in this unique view from above, captured with a remote camera. Overall winner of the 2016 Wildlife Photographer of the Year.
Baby orangutans have to be able to hold on to Mom from birth, and they get a pretty wild ride through the rain forest as she travels daily to find food.
An adult male orangutan in his prime is an impressive sight to behold.
As always, thanks for tuning in, and for your support of my work and the causes I support. Hope you can get out and enjoy the spring weather if you are in the Northern hemisphere! It’s looking beautiful here in Massachusetts right now.
Warmest regards,
Tim Laman
PS. Just a reminder, we are only offering this introductory price of $49 on my new course “Birds, Camera, Action” until March 29 and then it will go up to $99. Why you ask? Well, I need a cash infusion after spending so much time making this course. So now is your chance to get a deal!
Happy New Year 2024
As we start the new year, I’m taking a few moments to look back and reflect on a some highlights from the past year. It has been a rewarding year of great adventures and conservation photography projects. I’ve selected a few photos to share as a little visual review of the year. Thanks for following along, and hope you enjoy it!
A Few Highlights from 2023
5 Feb 2023: On the way to Antarctica on a Lindblad/National Geographic Expedition trip I found myself in a Zodiac surrounded by swimming King Penguins off the coast of Macquarie Island. Not having an underwater camera housing with me, I trusted in the waterproofness of my iPhone, submerged it and fired as fast as I could. This is one of the resulting shots. And yes, the phone still works!
12 April 2023: On assignment for the Cornell Lab of Ornithology I filmed the work of the organization Natura Mexicana and their efforts to conserve the endangered Scarlet Macaws in the Montes Azul Biosphere Reserve in southern Mexico. Our conservation film to help spread awareness about their work will be coming out in 2024.
7 June 2023: At night on a beach on the north coast of West Papua, I filmed a Leatherback Sea Turtle as she covered her eggs after laying. This was on another Cornell Lab expedition where I led a team documenting the biodiversity of West Papua from coast to mountains for a film that was shown at the COP28 meeting in December. You can see the film here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=vPb1CQWty60 We will be sharing more from this project in the months to come in support of our Indonesian partners as they work to conserve the forests of Papua.
16 July 2023: I returned to Gunung Palung National Park in Indonesian Borneo to continue documenting the biodiversity of this refuge of lowland rainforest biodiversity, working with my wife Cheryl Knott’s team. Stay tuned for a new National Geographic magazine article coming out in early 2024. This is the female orangutan Berani, with her baby born in December 2022. Learn more about the work in Gunung Palung and how you can get involved at www.savewildorangutans.org
15 Aug 2023: I led my first Underwater Photo Workshop in the spectacular Raja Ampat Islands based at the Papua Explorers resort with Zafer Kizilkaya. It was a great experience and we will do it again in 2024. The reefs of Raja Ampat are healthy, and the photo opportunities are amazing. Come join us! www.papuaexplorers.com/underwater-photography-workshop/
20 Nov 2023: I decided it was time to share some of my experience and knowledge about wildlife photography with others, and I created and launched my first online course: Bird Photography Masterclass.
The more photographers we have out there documenting the natural world and building appreciation for it the better, and I believe I can help by sharing the approach that has worked for me, and that I have developed over the years. While I do teach some in-person workshops, the medium of an online course seems like a great way make my teaching available to a wide audience. You can learn more at masterclass.timlaman.com.
Thanks for joining me on my adventures over the past year. As you see from my photo captions above, several of my 2023 projects haven’t reached fruition yet, so stay tuned in 2024 for further developments. And of course I’ll keep you posted on new projects as we get further into 2024.
I hope you are as excited about what lies ahead in 2024 as I am. All the best for the New Year!
Warmest regards,
Tim Laman
PS. As of right now, there are three opportunities to join me in the field on photography trips in 2024. See below, and don’t hesitate to reach out to my studio email if you have questions (studio@timlaman.com).
- Norway’s Fjords and Arctic Svalbard: May 15 - June 1. www.expeditions.com
- Raja Ampat Underwater Photography Workshop: Aug 11-21. www.papuaexplorers.com/underwater-photography-workshop/
- Upper Amazon Aboard the Delfin II: Nov 9 - Nov 19. www.expeditions.com
Fall Splendor in New England
The fall colors have just peaked where I live in Massachusetts. I hope wherever you are you have been enjoying the change of the seasons. After a lot of time overseas this year, it has been nice to be at home for a while this fall. What do I do when I’m not out on assignment, you ask? A few things that have been keeping me busy are:
- Editing a National Geographic magazine story, coming out in Feb. 2024.
- Developing a pitch for a new orangutan documentary.
- Creating a new online Masterclass in Bird Photography (sneak peak below).
- Furthering my partnership with Windowsight - a way to display my photographs on your blank TV.
- Creating six different bird-themed calendars for the holiday season.
But when I need my nature fix, I head out into the woods, often to my favorite local haunt, Walden Pond. It’s always possible to find beauty and inspiration even at this modest natural area outside Boston. Below you’ll find a few images that I made there within the past week.
Walden Pond Double Sunrise
It was the first night of the season when the thermometer dipped to freezing, and since the water was still much warmer than the air, I knew there would be early morning mist on Walden Pond. I arrived before sunrise, and hiked around, looking for interesting compositions. This brilliant maple caught my attention, backlit by the rising sun. By moving my camera position slightly, I could control the sunburst effect, created when sunbeams pass through a small gap in the leaves directly into the lens. To my surprise, I discovered a camera position where I got two sunbursts - one from the sun itself, and another from the suns’ reflection in the glass-calm pond surface. The result is the image you see here - my favorite from that beautiful morning.
“Walden Pond Double Sunrise” is not in the print store yet, but if anyone is interested in a print, just drop us a quick note at studio@timlaman.com.
Autumn at Walden Pond
Updates from the Studio
Calendars: We have created six different bird-themed calendars for your personal enjoyment or gifting needs this holiday season. The Birds-of-Paradise Collections were in the store last year, but the others are all new. Hope you enjoy them.
Bird Photography Masterclass - The Creative Process: My premise in creating this online course is that while there are many places you can learn the basics of photography and how to use your camera, I believe I have unique insights to offer on the most important part of making images - the artistic, creative aspect. I decided to focus on birds, since birds are everywhere, and I hope to inspire more people to go out and photograph birds and and share their love of nature and the need to protect bird habitats. Stay tuned and I’ll let you know when we launch the course!
Windowsight: If you haven’t checked out Windowsight, I highly recommend it. It is a way to turn your black TV screen into a place to display art. You can choose from over 100 of my favorite images, and thousands from other artists. It’s a new concept, but I think is sure to catch on. After all, why have a big black screen dominating a room, when it could be showing art? They are looking for fellow visionaries right now, who want to get a lifetime membership, and help this startup get going. Check them out HERE
Thanks or tuning in as always, and hope you are getting out and enjoying some time in nature!
Warmest regards,
Tim
Announcing my new book: BIRD PLANET
I’m excited to announce that I have just completed checking the proofs, and can now share that my new book “BIRD PLANET” will be published by Abrams in October, 2022. As most of you know by now, bird photography has been a special passion of mine for a long time. I have now pulled together my best bird images from my extensive assignments and travels around the world over the last 25 years into one volume celebrating the beauty and wonder of birds, and their importance as ambassadors for conservation of wild places.
Below is a little teaser - an example of an image from the book that has never been published before, and the story behind it. Hope you enjoy it. And further down is a link to pre-order a special signed edition of the book that I’m offering to subscribers first, which is bundled with a 12-inch print.
Behind the Scenes from BIRD PLANET:
BIRD PLANET is off to the printers soon, and will be shipping on October 4, 2022. Here is a sneak peak of the cover and full dust jacket, which is my image of scarlet ibises flying past the moon in Venezuela’s Orinoco River Delta, wrapped around the cover.
The book will be a 12x12 inch large format book, with 224 pages, and is organized geographically by region with chapter intros giving an overview of my fieldwork in each area. Stay tuned for more details to come as the publication date approaches. But in the mean time, I want to let you subscribers to Wildlife Diaries be the first to know that I am offering a signed copy of BIRD PLANET (personalized if you like) bundled with a 12-inch print for $100. I’ll only have 100 copies to sell in this way, so you are welcome to per-order now if you would like to lock that in. Books will ship after Oct 4. Follow this link to see the offer for the Signed Edition of BIRD PLANET.
Thanks for tuning in!
Stay safe everyone, and be sure to get your dose of nature therapy!
Warmest regards,
Tim Laman
PS. Just to let you know, next week I’ll be launching my Earth Day Fundraiser Print Sale for Bird Conservation featuring my BIRD PLANET collection. So keep your eye out for that announcement and thanks in advance for your support!
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.
As I reflect back on 2020, one of the biggest changes for me was not spending a huge chunk of the year far from home on photography projects. A big plus however, was more time with family, and finding photography projects closer to home. One highlight was being able to work with my son and daughter as my crew for a Cornell Lab of Ornithology project filming Loons in Acadia National Park last summer. Our short film is in the works, and I’ll be looking forward to sharing that with you all as soon as it’s available. So in celebration of that, here is a heart-felt greeting from the Laman crew in the field:
WINDOWSIGHT - STREAM ART TO YOUR TV!
Here is something new you might enjoy in this new year. A brand new App called Windowsight allows you to turn your HD TV screen into a place to display art. Think of all the time your screen is just a black rectangle in a prominent place in your home. With the Windowsight app, you can display artworks from TIM LAMAN FINE ART or choose from many other photographers and visual artists. Check them out at www.windowsight.com (or @windowsight on Instagram) and get the app in the app store. You can try it out for free for the first week, and get three months for the price of one with my discount code “TIMLAMAN”.
OUR CONSERVATION PARTNERS THANK YOU
One thing I am happy about for 2020, thanks to many of you who purchased prints from me during my fundraising sales, is that I was able to make charitable donations to support Bird-of-Paradise and Orangutan conservation by our partners in Indonesia.
Birds-of-Paradise Fundraiser: I donated $4XXX to the small Indonesian NGO Papua Konservasi dan Komunitas, which took no overhead, and distributed the aid directly to the families in several villages in West Papua as several rounds of staple food supplies. In this way we were able to provide some direct help families that have been protecting their forest to create an economy around birding tourism, but have been struggling during covid due to the lack of visitors.
Orangutan Fundraiser: I donated $14,861 to Save Wild Orangutans, the proceeds from our very successful holiday print sale thanks to many of you, and to the surprising popularity of the image “Live Streaming, Borneo 2020” (below), which seems to have captured the way people felt about 2020, (or perhaps just filled a need I hadn’t realized was out there for bathroom decor). In any case, the funds went to support the programs of the Gunung Palung Orangutan Project focused on safeguarding one of the critical and most significant populations of Bornean Orangutans. To learn more about their activities please visit SaveWildOrangutans.org where you can also learn about how to be an ongoing contributor, which I’d encourage you to do.
So a huge thank you once again to all of you who supported these conservation groups and I hope the prints on your wall will be a pleasant reminder of some good we were able to do during the crazy year of 2020. I will plan to have more print fundraisers later this year, so please keep that in mind and drop us a note any time if you have questions at studio@timlaman.com.
With all the best for a healthy, safe, and inspiring year ahead.
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!
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International Photo Festival at Montier en Der
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 Hornbills have been one of my favorite rainforest birds ever since my very first trip to Borneo, and I was excited to capture this new image in Thailand during my recent hornbill assignment for National Geographic. To get a shot like this, the key thing is to be up in the canopy at the level where all the fruit is, so first we had to find a fruiting fig tree with a suitable nearby tree for climbing. Then climb the tree and construct a platform and turn it into a blind with camouflage cloth. Then come back before dawn and climb the tree by ascending the rope, pull up camera gear and set up. Then wait…. hoping the birds will come. In this case, with all these ripe figs, how could they resist? But you still need a lucky moment when the bird pops his head out from among the foliage to look around for the ripest fig. That’s when I captured this image.
Gallery Update:
My biggest sale of the year starts this Saturday the 23rd!
We are prepping a new set of Bird-of-Paradise square prints that make ideal gifts.
We have also added my “Feathers of the Forest” gallery of favorite forest bird images exhibited at Monteir en Der to the fine art site. Please have a sneak peak at www.timlamanfineart.com. Prints will be on sale starting the 23rd, so please come back then.
View Art Galleries
Thanks for reading, and best wishes to all.
Tim
Back from Indonesia
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.
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).
Well, Walimah is now having a second chance! She finally became pregnant again last year, and has a healthy new baby born this year in May! The images below are a couple of my favorites from my recent trip. Walimah’s new baby appears to be a female, and is now three months old and doing well. She is a great symbol of hope for the future of the orangutans of Gunung Palung, a conservation area that is turning out to be a stronghold for the critically endangered Bornean Orangutan. I’m already planning to keep going back to GP regularly over the next few years to document Walimah’s baby as she grows up.
You can learn more about Cheryl’s research and conservation work at Gunung Palung by checking out her website www.savegporangutans.org and following her teams’ work at @saveGPorangutans. Please consider supporting their hard work partnering with the National Park and surrounding communities to safeguard GP as an orangutan sanctuary for the long term.
Gallery Update:
I’m also launching an orangutan print gallery today at my art store TimLamanFineArt, so please check it out. I’ll be contributing profits from sale of these prints to saveGPorangutans.org, so please consider making a purchase to support orangutan conservation.
Here is a glimpse of some of the images in the new Orangutan gallery.
Thanks for reading and best wishes to all.
Tim
Thanks-A-Million Last Change
Dear Friends,
This is it - two days left to celebrate 1 million Instagram followers with me by scoring a great deal on my fine art prints!
Here's what you can save:
INDIVIDUAL PRINTS - 33% OFF
12x12" = $150 $100
15x15" = $225 $150
18x18" = $340 $226
PRINT COLLECTIONS - EXTRA 10%-20% OFF WITH CODE WALLART
Set of any 4, 15x15" = $900 $540
Set of any 4, 18x18" = $1,360 $814
Set of any 6, 15x15" = $1,350 $720
Set of any 6, 18x18" = $2,040 $1,085
Shop the Sale »
This is one of the best discounts I've ever offered (particularly the sets of 4 and 6), but I wanted to make this one special.
So thanks one more time to everyone who has enjoyed my work on Instagram, and I hope these prints make a perfect addition to your wallspace.1
All the best,
-Tim
P.S. - The sale ends July 3 at midnight. Any questions? Hit reply and let me know. And don't forget code WALLART to get an extra 10% off sets of 4 and an extra 20% off sets of 6!
Thanks-A-Milllion Update
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 18x18" 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 15x15" and 18x18" sizes.
So on top of 33% off each Instagram-favorite print, you can now score an additional 10-20% off for buying sets! To maximize your savings, I recommend a set of 6 which looks fantastic over a couch, bed, or table.
Shop the "Thanks a Million" Sale »
I hope this satisfies everyone who has been inquiring about larger sizes as well as a potential discount for ordering a full set of prints.
Thank you for all the support, and remember - the sale ends July 3!
All the best,
Tim
Happy New Year!
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’ll be sharing brand new work from this Antarctica trip on my Social channels (IG: @TimLaman, FB: TimLamanPhoto), so please follow along. In case you would like to see more of my past work from Antarctica, we have also just uploaded a new gallery to my Fine Art website, www.timlamanfineart.com, so please enjoy the gallery. We’ll be adding new galleries all year long of both my favorite archival images as well as new work, so check in once in a while, and thanks for your support.
Here is wishing you all a more peaceful world in 2019 where we collectively put a higher priority on taking care of our beautiful planet, and being more kind to each other!
Warm regards from Antarctica,
Tim
Tim Interviewed by USA Today
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.
New Species Discovered In Lost World
If you missed Tim's article in Australian Geographic you can now read it online. In the Cape York Peninsula of Australia, the boulder fields are a spectacular sight. Tim and biologist Conrad Hoskin traveled by helicopter to discover new species during their expedition. You can read the article on Australian Geographic's webpage - Cape Melville's Lost World.
Birds of Paradise on BBC Planet Earth 2
Tim shot for the BBC's Planet Earth 2: Jungles episode which premiered in the UK last night. It included two species Tim is very familiar with, the Wilson's Bird of Paradise and the Red Bird of Paradise.
Not only did they capture the beautiful behavior they also discovered something new. For the first time they recorded the Wilson's Bird of Paradise from the top down which is the point of view of the female. They were able to see the beautiful display the male preforms in the way it was intended. To view behind-the-scenes footage of their discovery, visit the BBC Planet Earth II website.
Stay tuned for the premier of the Jungles episode in the US at the end of January.
Orangutans - Out on a Limb Published in Dec 2016 NatGeo Magazine
It's been several years in the works, and I'm happy to share that my latest National Geographic magazine story "Orangutans - Out on a Limb" has just appeared in the December 2016 issue. Check out the Dec print magazine, or one of the digital editions online or on your iPad to see the extra videos.
LINK TO ARTICLE ON NATIONALGEOGRAPHIC.COM
The article, by Mel White, features new discoveries about orangutans by researchers such as my wife Cheryl Knott and her team (learn more about their work at www.saveGPorangutans.com), and many other researchers. Also, the realities of orangutan conservation are also dealt with. I'm really proud to have this come out, and hope you will all take a look and get engaged in this important issue.
Tim to Speak at Wildscreen
On Friday October 14 Tim will speak at Wildscreen's photography day. He will give an innovative presentation about his long term project photographing wild Orangutans and the conservation issues surrounding them. Here is Wildscreen's webpage for the photography day where you can purchase tickets to Tim's talk. wildscreen.org/photography
Get the Story Behind Tim's World Press Photo Win
Recently at the World Press Photo awards in Amsterdam, Tim talked about the difficulties of photographing Orangutans in the wild and the conservation issues that face them. See his interview below.Tim's story 'Tough Times for Orangutans' won 1st place in the nature stories category of the World Press Photo awards this year.https://vimeo.com/album/3956223/video/167151513
National Geographic Traveler
Tim's pictures were featured in the April/May issue of National Geographic Traveler magazine. The story was written by his wife and 2 kids about their summer adventures to Borneo as a family.
Flashback Japan - feature in Japanese National Geographic
Happy 20th Anniversary to National Geographic Japan, the first international edition of National Geographic magazine!
In honor of their anniversary, National Geographic Japan created a special section called Flashback Japan in their December 2015 issue, and I am honored to be featured. They selected one of my images from my story about Japanese Winter Wildlife, originally published in the January 2003 issue of National Geographic. Here is the spread from Japanese National Geographic. I have provided an English translation of the Japanese text below.
Here is the English translation of the text on the spread above, published in Dec 2015 National Geographic Japanese edition:
Deer and Sea Ice, Hokkaido, Japan
One morning, photographer Tim Laman was exploring the remote coast of Shiretoko Peninsula in Hokkaido. While he was making landscape photographs of the sea ice, several deer appeared, walking along the beach. "I became very excited at what they might add to the composition," Tim said.
Laman, a world-class wildlife photographer, is also a field biologist with a doctorate from Harvard. He says, "I like to capture images showing animals in their landscape." After a while, two of the deer, coming from opposite directions, met and gently touched noses, perhaps in greeting. "It was a brief moment, but I snapped the shutter and captured it."
Japan is a second home to Laman, because he was born and grew up in Japan -- in Tokyo, Sasebo, and Kobe, due to his father's job. So the story, Japan's Winter Wildlife in NGM 2003 January issue, was like a dream come true. "I wanted to show the broader world the beauty of nature in Japan. I chose the winter season for its clean beauty," he said.
On his assignment, he worked in Nagano, Iwate, and Hokkaido, to capture monkeys in Jigokudani or swans in Lake Kussharo, and many other subjects. Tim says some of his favorite photographs are those of Red-crowned Cranes in Kushiro Shitsugen wetland. "Sunrise on the river, and the roosting cranes backlit through the mist. Or a couple making a mating call as snow gently fell through the air. I had many unforgettable moments."
Borneo Is Burning - Photos
Below are some pictures of the fires and its effects from 3 weeks ago. Indonesia recently received some rain but the fires are still a threat.
See the National Geographic New article: Photos: Indonesia's Rampant Fires Threaten Rare Orangutan.