6/13/25 6/13/25

Back to Borneo

Dear Friends,
My first trip of 2025 back was to Borneo, to the research station where my wife, orangutan researcher Cheryl Knott and I have worked for over 30 years.

I have a special guest author for this installment of Wildlife Diaries! Accompanying the new photos from our January trip below is an essay by Cheryl about this special trip. I think you will enjoy it. She does a good job of capturing the multi-faceted nature of our trip, and why we have been drawn back to Borneo for so much of our lives.

It’s Earth Month, and I hope you’ll consider learning more about the Gunung Palung Orangutan Project by reading below, and perhaps checking out more about all they are doing for orangutan conservation and human welfare in that part of Borneo. This is a challenging time for research and conservation funding, so I am trying to help them grow their grass-roots support. Please check them out at Save Wild Orangutans.

Male Orangutan in Contemplation

It’s easy to anthropomorphize with orangutans, who are so similar to us. So I may be guilty with the title of this image, but it sure looks to me like this male orangutan, named Balon, is lost in thought as he rests one morning between feeding bouts. Balon is one of the males that we followed in January at Gunung Palung that Cheryl talks about in her update below. The mast fruiting event drew more orangutans into the study area, and we had an exciting time documenting them.

Guest Essay by Dr. Cheryl Knott - Director, Gunung Palung Orangutan Project

The Magic of Mast Fruiting at Gunung Palung

Thirty years ago, when I first arrived in Gunung Palung National Park, the forest was thick with the smell of ripening fruit and the largest trees emerged from the canopy resplendent in colors of orange and red. This phenomenon, when many of the tree and liana species fruit simultaneously, is unpredictable but happens every four years or so, providing a bonanza of food for rainforest creatures. This past January, I returned to Cabang Panti Research Station with my family and once again experienced this remarkable transformation of the forest.

The setting sun lights up ripening seeds in the canopy.

With the abundance of fruit, orangutans appeared in unusually high numbers. In the two and half weeks that I was there, we saw as many as 10 individual orangutans on a given day. By the end of January, 27 new orangutans had entered the study area! And we only found 5 of the orangutans that usually call Cabang Panti home. It's a bit of mystery where all these orangutans come from, but one possibility is that they normally spend their days in the large expanse of peat swamp that extends outside the study area.

Balon, a male with an especially large throat sac.

Among these new arrivals were three flanged males. For years, the dominant male in the area had been Alfred, but when I last saw him in August, his condition had declined. He was notably smaller and weaker, often traveling on the ground and feeding primarily on termites and low-lying vegetation instead of climbing trees. He was last seen on September 15. Then in November, the team sadly discovered the skeleton of a male orangutan that we strongly suspect was Alfred. His disappearance, though, paved the way to a new beginning as the mast brought in these new males to take advantage of the abundance of fruit. The first such male we saw had a huge throat sac and so we named him Balon (balloon). He was surprisingly habituated for a new individual. Balon was in excellent condition and impressive! He did bear multiple scars on his cheek pads, attesting to the likely numerous fights he had had with other males.

“Mr. Perfect”, a male exceptionally perfect large cheek pads.

But, then came "Mr. Perfect", as we jokingly called him. He has the most perfect cheek flanges I have ever seen, with no blemishes or scars, just a flat rigid circle around his face. His literally flawless condition, along with his unworn teeth and lighter hair, signaled to us that he was a young, newly flanged male. He long called an extraordinary 15 times the first day we found him! Long calls announce a male's presence to the females, and other males, in the area. Often, males will long call back in response, and charge in the direction of the other males, sometimes resulting in a physical confrontation. But Balon, despite being only about 100 meters away from "Mr. Perfect", was not provoked. He remained silent—perhaps a sign of experience in avoiding fights he could possibly lose.

A juvenile watches while a female orangutan opens a durian fruit, one of the delicious and calorie-rich species that fruit during the mast.

Mast fruiting events allow orangutans to accumulate fat reserves that sustain them during leaner periods. This is when they look their biggest and healthiest. The increase in energy intake also influences female reproductive cycles, raising hormone levels and increasing the chances of ovulation and conception. Often mast fruiting result in new births, and on February 26 I received the news that female Kabar was pregnant again with her second baby after more than 8 years! We hope that Bibi, another female who lost a pregnancy earlier this year, will also conceive during this period of high fruit availability.

The benefits of mast fruiting even extend to the humans who call this rainforest enclave home. Normally we can't eat the wild fruits of the forest – they are too bitter and have compounds that make them hard to digest. But the mast is different. Each day we'd come back to camp, and find bowls of wild fruits on the table, and rice sacks full of durians ready for all to consume. As we followed the orangutans, we gathered fallen mangosteens, Baccaurea, Garcinia, and durian, enjoying them much as the orangutans did. That simple act, sharing in the abundance of the mast, reinforced our deep connection to these apes and their rainforest home.

This exceptional visit to Gunung Palung was a reminder of why protecting this ecosystem is so vital. As the forest provides, the orangutans thrive, and we, as stewards of this planet, must ensure this continues for generations to come.

Cheryl with field assistant Herman, and student Ziya watch an orangutan at Gunung Palung. Cheryl’s project employs many local people, and gives many opportunities for Indonesian students to get involved in field research and conservation. Developing the next generation of conservationists in Indonesia is critical to the survival of orangutans.

Cheryl hikes through the rainforest in Borneo, followed by son Russell, daughter Jessica, and other team members.

I hope you enjoyed Cheryl’s essay. Working at Gunung Palung is a family affair for us, as we have been taking our kids there every summer since they were little. They are now adults, and both involved in work there. Russell is part of the photography team, while Jessica, who is still an undergrad, is getting involved in the orangutan research.

Thanks for reading and taking an interest in our work in Borneo. I hope you found it interesting and inspiring.

Warmest regards,
Tim Laman

PS. Please consider checking out https://www.savewildorangutans.org/ and becoming a monthly donor, even for a small amount. Every supporter is a big help during these challenging times when big grants have been cut.

1/6/25 1/6/25

Back in Borneo to Start the New Year

Happy New Year and greetings from Indonesia! I am excited to be writing to you from the town of Ketapang on the island of Borneo, our jumping off point as we prepare to head into Gunung Palung National Park.

We just celebrated the new year with the whole team from the Gunung Palung Orangutan Conservation Program, known as Yayasan Palung here in Indonesia, and are preparing to head up to the research station in the park where I have spent so much time over the years.

This is Year 30 of my wife Cheryl Knott’s orangutan project and so our focus on this trip is two-fold. First, we want to capture this historic achievement of this long-term project by filming the various team members sharing their stories. Our timing is also exciting in that there is a major mast fruiting event going on it the forest. This phenomenon only happens about once every five years, when trees of all different species fruit in synchrony. So our second objective is to film orangutans and other wildlife feasting on this bounty.

It’s exciting to be starting off the new year with this important project and to have a chance to spend time with family, friends, and colleagues old and new in the rainforest of Gunung Palung. You are welcome to join us virtually by visiting www.savewildorangutans.org. (There is more info below).

I look forward to sharing new content from this trip with you all in a future update, but in the meantime, here are a few favorite images from my Gunung Palung archives.

Rhinoceros Hornbills in the canopy. One of my favorite shots of all time when everything came together after a pre-dawn tree climb near a fruiting fig. Three hornbills in the foreground, perfect mist in the canopy in the background….

Male orangutan with leaf umbrella. During a rare orangutan follow where this male tolerated me nearby as he fed on termites on the ground, I was in position to catch him pull this leafy branch over his head as is started to rain.

A giant strangler fig tree (Ficus kerkhovenii) which has long since killed its host tree stands supported by its many prop roots. I once climbed this tree to photograph birds feeding in the canopy, but it has long since fallen and died.

Aerial view of the lowland rainforest canopy during the mast fruiting of 2018. During these mast fruiting events, the normally green rainforest canopy bursts into color. This is what we hope to document, this time with a full film crew, during our January 2025 trip into the park.

As always, thanks for tuning in. I wish you all a healthy, happy, and successful 2025. If you are into lifelong learning and supporting good causes, see below for a few ideas for 2025.

Warmest regards,
Tim Laman

A Few Ideas for 2025

Sign up for the “Save Wild Orangutans” Newsletter.
https://www.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 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 brief reads, where I always learn something that I find myself thinking about later when I’m out in the field. Again, 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 and support his work. Do check it out.

Commit to Improving Your Photography.
Https://masterclass.TimLaman.com
Are you interested in photographing birds or wildlife in general? 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 Bird Photography Masterclass called “Getting Creative”. It could be just the thing to help you take your photography to a whole new level this year. If you are more of a beginner, there is also a course to get you started in bird photography called “Birds, Camera, Action”.

4/14/24 4/14/24

Celebrating Orangutans for Earth Day

Earth Day is coming up April 22, and as I’ve done in the past, I’m taking this occasion to celebrate the efforts of the Gunung Palung Orangutan Conservation Program. I use my photographs and films to help spread the word about their important work to safeguard one of the key populations of wild Bornean Orangutans in and around Gunung Palung National Park.

How about lending your support this Earth Day by:
1) Purchase an orangutan print from my store. 100% of proceeds will go to orangutan conservation work in the field. Or…
2) Visit SaveWildOrangutans.org, and make a one time donation, or sign up to be a monthly contributor, and know you are helping orangutans all year long.

Below are a few new images I’ve added to my online gallery. You can see all your options on my Fine Art Website.

It’s rare that I get this close to a wild orangutan. But one time a few years back, a big male orangutan at the Tuanan research station was traveling on the ground, and passed very close to me. I happened to be using a powerful telephoto lens, and as he paused with his hand holding this branch, I decided to capture this tight shot. We all know great apes are our closest relatives. But for me, that really hits home when I get a close look at their hands. They are amazingly similar to ours, right down to the fingernails and fingerprints. I think this image helps us to appreciate that kinship, and I hope inspires a desire to make sure we leave space on the planet for them to thrive as well.

More New Gallery Additions

“Mother’s Pride”

Do orangutan mother’s feel pride in their offspring? We don’t know for sure, but they are certainly dedicated mothers who care for their babies for eight years or more until they are able to be independent. That’s the longest dependency of any mammal except humans!

“Relaxing - Tapanuli Orangutan”. This is an adult male Tapanuli Orangutan in his prime. Tapanuli is the third species of orangutan (after Bornean and Sumatran), and only recognized formally in 2017. The Tapanuli Orangutan is only found in one small population in Sumatra of about 800 individuals.

For you photographers out there, are you keen to get out and do more bird photography this spring? Are you still working on mastering your camera skills? I have a course for you called “Birds, Camera, Action”. Or perhaps you are ready to get more creative and take your photography to the next level? I have a course for you called “Getting Creative”!
Follow the link below to learn more.

Bird Photography Masterclass with Tim Laman

As always, thanks for tuning in, and for your support of my work and the causes I support. Spring is here to be sure to get out and enjoy it!

Warmest regards,

Tim Laman

PS. I am offering a new “bundle” of my two Bird Photography Masterclass courses purchased together for a nice discount. Check it out HERE.

3/26/24 3/26/24

New Orangutan Prints are Online!

As many of you know, I am a big supporter of the Gunung Palung Orangutan Conservation Program. I use my photographs and films to help spread the word about their important work to safeguard one of the key populations of wild Bornean Orangutans in and around Gunung Palung National Park.

I also from time to time, try to use my art to raise actual cash for this NGO, and that’s where you come in. From now until Earth Day April 22, I am offering to donate 100% of profits from sale of my orangutan prints to GPOCP. So you have a chance to collect one of my prints, and make a contribution to a good cause at the same time.

Especially for you collectors who have perhaps purchased one of my orangutan prints before, I have added a few new ones to my gallery. A couple examples are below. I hope you’ll find one you like that will put a smile on your face. And thanks in advance for your support.

Waiting Out The Rain

Did you know that orangutans often make umbrellas when it rains hard? They make a couple different types, and here you can see this female has made the “cape” type of umbrella, where she just pulls a cluster of branches together over her back to let a lot of the rain roll off. Her baby doesn’t seem to be particularly well covered, however, and is just toughing it out. Umbrella making is an example of a learned behavior, culturally transmitted from mother to offspring during the long learning period that baby orangutans spend with their mothers.

Visit My Orangutan Gallery

More New Gallery Additions

“Give Me Some, Mom” A baby orangutan pulls at her mother’s face as she feeds on flowers of the Fordia tree.

“Just Chillin” An adult flanged male Bornean Orangutan leans back for a rest in a tree high in the rainforest canopy.

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.

Hit the image below to view the trailer for the course and learn more.

As always, thanks for tuning in, and for your support of my work and the causes I support. Spring is here to be sure to get out and enjoy it!
Warmest regards,

Tim Laman

3/20/24 3/20/24

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!

12/31/22 12/31/22

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.

**Berani and her new baby, photographed on Dec 12, 2022.**

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!

My Underwater Photo Workshop co-leader Zafer Kizilkaya shoots a very approachable school of sweetlips on a Raja Ampat reef.

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/

7/20/22 7/20/22

Back to Borneo!

Hello Friends,

Greetings from the rain forest of Borneo! I’m writing this on my iPhone while sitting under a fruiting fig tree where the orangutan mom and juvenile we have been following have been feeding for the past couple hours, unfortunately their position is high and obstructed. Thus I have some down time here to catch you up on my latest news.

This is my first trip back to Gunung Palung National Park since before the pandemic and it’s good to be back. Just this morning gibbons, macaques, and orangutans have all been feeding at this tree as well as at least a dozen species of birds, including the colorful barbets, several species of which are just now calling incessantly above.

I’m here with my wife Cheryl Knott who directs the Gunung Palung Orangutan Project and her team of students and assistants. My 18 year old daughter Jessica is working with Cheryl on her project, and my 22 year old son Russell is assisting me with filming orangutans for another major production. It’s great to be here with the whole family and all our Indonesian colleagues working to spread the word about the amazing biodiversity that is protected in this sanctuary.

Rhinoceros Hornbills In The Canopy

This image of rhinoceros hornbills high in the canopy of the lowland rainforest in Gunung Palung is one of my all time favorites that I made from a blind high in the canopy near a fruiting fig tree. I love capturing shots of the rain forest wildlife in the broader landscape and the mist hovering in the canopy on this early morning created the perfect atmosphere for the image.

I’ll be spending at least three months in the field here this year also working on a major National Geographic magazine feature about Gunung Palung’s amazingly intact flora and fauna that represents the full diversity of lowland rainforest species in Borneo.

So please stay tuned and I’ll keep sending periodic updates. It’s not easy to upload new photos from here as I have no internet connection and just enough signal to send this note out by WhatsApp to my assistant back in the US. So she will add some images from my GP archives to this newsletter and I’ll look forward to sharing new images when I can.

Long-tailed Macaque (Macaca fascicularis) in the canopy of a fruiting strangler fig tree (Ficus dubia), surrounded by ripening figs.

Have a good summer everyone, and if you you want to learn more about our conservation work here and don’t already follow us, please check out www.savewildorangutans.com.

12/1/21 12/1/21

Ways You Can Help Orangutans this Giving Tuesday

Dear Friends,

It’s Giving Tuesday today, and I hope you are giving some thought to how you can help out the causes you care about. Here at Tim Laman Photography, we are supporting our long-term partner the “Gunung Palung Orangutan Conservation Program” and their campaign “Save Wild Orangutans”.

Here are four ways you can be engaged:

Make a one-time donation HERE. https://www.savewildorangutans.org/donate/
Join the Team! Sign up to make a monthly donation HERE. https://www.savewildorangutans.org/join-the-team/. As a perk of being a regular donor, even for a small amount like $5 or $10/month, you will receive our “Orangutan Diaries” updates from the field.
Buy an Orangutan print today. It’s the last day of our Holiday Print Sale, and 50% of profits will be donated directly to Save Wild Orangutans. Visit my gallery HERE. https://www.timlamanfineart.com/orangutans
Join my Live Art Sale & Conservation Fundraiser tomorrow, Dec 1 at 6PM Eastern. I will be selling prints from my inventory here in the studio. Half of profits from orangutan prints will also be donated to Save Wild Orangutans, and there are many unique orangutan prints in this collection. Check my Instagram or FB tomorrow Dec 1 for details.

Mist in the Canopy, Gunung Palung

At SAVE WILD ORANGUTANS, the orangutans themselves are of course the key flagship species we focus attention on. But what wild orangutans need is healthy rainforest habitat like the lowland forest of Gunung Palung, pictured above. When we work to protect habitat for orangutans, we save the entire spectrum of biodiversity in the rich lowland forests of Borneo. So please think about that as you contemplate how you can help this Giving Tuesday. You can learn a lot more about all the ways the team in Indonesia is working toward this goal of forest habitat protection at the main website www.savegporangutans.org.

The Incredible Biodiversity of Gunung Palung

As one of the very best remaining lowland forests in all of Borneo, Gunung Palung harbors an incredible variety of creatures besides orangutans. Here are just a few examples:

Rhinoceros Hornbill (Buceros rhinoceros) adult male. Perched in the canopy of the Borneo rain forest.

How Do We Save The Forest and All This Biodiversity?

Youth gather for World Orangutan Day in Ketapang, West Kalimantan

It’s all about getting the local communities around Gunung Palung to realize that protecting the forest is in their long term best interest. It starts with the kids, and goes right on up to village leaders and government officials. That’s why the Gunung Palung Orangutan Conservation Program, with its staff of nearly fifty Indonesians, works at all levels to spread this message.

So thanks for considering your support for Orangutans this Giving Tuesday. I hope that one of the ways I have suggested above will work for you to lend a hand!

Warmest regards,

Tim Laman

PS. Today is the last day of my Holiday Sale and Fundraiser at TimLamanFineArt.com. All prints are 30% off till midnight tonight Nov 30!

11/27/21 11/27/21

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.

That Special Connection

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:

https://www.savewildorangutans.org/join-the-team/

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??

30 inch prints are now $350!

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

https://www.savewildorangutans.org

Gunung Palung Orangutan Project home page

https://savegporangutans.org

10/8/21 10/8/21

Save Wild Orangutans and get a Free Print

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

7/20/21 7/20/21

King of the Jungle

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

1/29/21 1/29/21

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:

Tim Laman with daughter Jessica and son Russell after a morning session filming Loons at Echo Lake, Acadia National Park, Maine.

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”.

Windowsight App simulation: You can stream images from your phone App to your large screen TV and enjoy Tim Laman Fine Art images in a new way.

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.

“Live Streaming - Borneo 2020” was our most popular print sold during our 2020 holiday print fundraiser.

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!

11/25/20 11/25/20

Supporting Wild Orangutans of Gunung Palung

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

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 monthly blog updates. Higher monthly contribution levels come with other nice perks! Check it out here:
https://www.savewildorangutans.org/join-the-team/

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 100% of profits from orangutan print sales to Save Wild Orangutans from Nov 25 to Dec 1 (Giving Tuesday).

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.
Peace,
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
https://www.savewildorangutans.org

Gunung Palung Orangutan Project home page
https://savegporangutans.org

12/3/19 12/3/19

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

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.

About the Gunung Palung Orangutan Conservation Program:

Gunung Palung National Park is one of the key strongholds of the Bornean Orangutan in West Kalimantan, Indonesia. GPOCP works closely with the communities around the park to:

Obtain the legal title to their customary forest lands, preventing logging and conversion to farm land or oil palm plantations

Switch to sustainable, organic agriculture practices that prevent further slash and burn destruction of the rainforest

Develop alternative livelihoods that use sustainable non-timber forest products that create incentives to protect forests as well as provide income from sources that don't destroy orangutan habitat

Teach young people about the value of protecting Indonesia's unique rainforests, endangered wildlife and educate the next generation of conservation leaders

Study wild orangutans and learn about their nutritional requirements, reproductive viability and population health

To learn more about GPOCP, visit there website www.saveGPorangutans.org. And of course, please consider a donation beyond a print purchase as well if you are so inclined.

Gallery Update:

My 33% off Holiday Sale continues through Dec 8. As long as you order by then, we can assure delivery by Christmas.

Thanks for reading, and best wishes to all.

11/8/19 11/8/19

Back to Gunung Palung

Dear Friends,

In October I was able to get back out to Gunung Palung in Borneo and check in on the baby orangutan born to Walimah in May. You may recall from an earlier newsletter that in July, the two-month old baby was still clinging to her mom 100% of the time. What a big change I saw in October! Now she is climbing around on branches and vines near her mom, and trying to sample fruits, imitating her mom’s feeding behavior, even though she can’t open the fruits yet. Here are a few images that show the five-month old baby, named Winnie by Pak Ari, the Director of Gunung Palung National Park that I shot in October.

Featured Photos:

Baby Winnie, five months old, reaching for fruits she’s not big enough to eat.

Filming for the BBC – Seven Worlds One Planet:

On the Orangutan theme, I’m excited to share that a major filming project that I worked on at Gunung Palung in 2017 and 2018 has now come to fruition! BBC newest Landmark series Seven Worlds One Planet’s Episode 2, Asia, includes a segment on the orangutans of Gungung Palung. The “Making of” section at the end of the film also features our work at Gunung Palung and the issue of orangutan conservation.

The film is already on the air in the UK, and will premier in the US on January 18, 2020.

To share just a little of what it is like do high quality filming of orangutans in Gunung Palung, it requires long days of carrying heavy gear through the forest for those occasional chances when we can get a good view of the orangutans. I carry my RED Helium 8K camera with a Canon 200-400mm and am closely followed by my assistant Bacong carrying a Gitzo series 5 tripod with a Sachtler video head. When we get a view, Bacong quickly puts up the tripod, I pop on the camera and try to get a shot off. We do this many, many times for each time we actually film something usable. But it’s worth the effort!

As always, you can learn more about my wife Cheryl Knott’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

Holiday sale coming up: It’s that time of year, and I’m going to be offering a special holiday discount in my Fine Art Store www.timlamanfineart.com for the last week of November. It will be a perfect time for some early holiday shopping with plenty of time for printing and shipping, so think about anyone who might appreciate a Tim Laman print, ranging in price from $100 and up and keep your eye out for the sale announcement. Thanks for supporting my work!

Thanks for reading, and best wishes to all.
Tim

8/30/19 8/30/19

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

1/25/17 1/25/17

”Entwined Lives” – The Story Behind the Photo

An endangered young male Bornean Orangutan climbs over 30 meters up a tree deep in the rain forest of Gunung Palung National Park, West Kalimantan, Indonesia (Island of Borneo).

In October 2016, it was my honor to win the “Wildlife Photographer of the Year” award with an image of an orangutan climbing a tree in Gunung Palung National Park entitled “Entwined Lives”. It’s been a few months now since the award, and I would like to share the story behind this image and what this image means to me.

As a wildlife photographer, it was of course a career highlight to win this award - the most prestigious in our field. But for me, it was particularly special because I made the image in Gunung Palung National Park (GP) in Indonesian Borneo. GP is a place that I have had a personal relationship with for nearly thirty years, since I first went there as a research assistant in 1987, and I care deeply about its conservation. Not only did I do my Ph.D. research at GP, but I also photographed my first National Geographic articles there. Not only that, but I am married to orangutan researcher Cheryl Knott, I have been going to GP with Cheryl (and more recently our kids) nearly every year to help with her ongoing orangutan research and conservation program (see www.saveGPorangutans.org). This picture is one of six photos of mine on the theme of orangutan conservation that won first prize in the Wildlife Photojournalism Story category of the competition. All six are now part of the traveling exhibition of the top 100 images that goes to sixty venues around the world. Thus, I am hoping that the exposure from winning this contest and the travelling exhibition will bring some positive attention worldwide to Gunung Palung and the plight of orangutans.

This image has a very unique perspective. In fact, people say they have never seen an orangutan picture like this ever before. So I thought I would take the chance to share what went into making this shot. I have actually had the idea of trying to photograph an orangutan up in the canopy with a wide lens for a long time. Gunung Palung has one of the very best remaining areas of lowland rainforest in Borneo, and intact primary forest is so important for orangutans. I wanted to capture a photograph that really showed the orangutan in the forest it depends on, and convey that feeling of the connection between them.

But getting a camera into position to get this shot was a challenge! This is a wild orangutan and would never tolerate me up in a tree near him. So the only way to get a photo like this is to use a hidden remote camera. The problem is, orangutans are not that predictable and travel through hundreds of different trees in the forest every week. So as I followed orangutans from the ground with Cheryl and her team, I was always looking for the right situation to try this. The only thing somewhat predictable about orangutan ranging is that if there is a tree with a lot of fruit in it, they may visit it several times over multiple days. My hope for getting a shot like this was to find such a tree and then climb and set up remote cameras when the orangutan had left, and hope he or she would come back. Luckily, I had developed the skills to do this as part of my PhD fieldwork in Gunung Palung between 1990-1992 on strangler fig trees, when I did a lot of tree climbing for my research. It was then that I perfected my techniques for rigging ropes in trees and climbing them with rope-ascending equipment, and these skills have been part of my “tools of the trade” as a rain forest wildlife photographer ever since. In fact, soon after I started doing serious wildlife photography from up in trees in the 1990’s I had the idea of photographing a wild orangutan close-up with a wide lens and even carried out some failed early attempts in 1994. So my recent efforts are the result of dreaming about such a shot and mentally planning it for 20+ years.

In 2014, when I arrived at Gunung Palung, one of Cheryl’s students, Robert Rodriguez Suro, had found a good fruiting Chaetocarpus tree that orangutans were repeatedly visiting. I climbed it with ropes and mounted two DSLR’s cameras, hidden in camouflage, and then we had a long stake-out. Every day for about a week, I would climb the tree early in the morning and put out the cameras with fresh cards and batteries. Then photographer Trevor Frost, who was assisting me at the time, waited under that tree for orangutans to show up while I was following and photographing other orangutans elsewhere in the forest. I think Trevor read a lot of books that week while he waited! We had a number of opportunities when orangutans showed up, and Trevor fired the cameras with a radio control. But things didn’t go perfectly. We had range problems with our signals reaching up into the dense canopy so the cameras wouldn’t always fire. And the orangutans seemed to spot the cameras and take circuitous routes into the tree and avoid passing near the camera. Every night, I would climb the tree again and recover the cameras, and see if we had anything on the cards.

All that effort produced one shot that was “almost” there, of a female orangutan named Jumi passing pretty close to the camera one day. The shot (see below) really had that feel I wanted of being up in the canopy with the orangutan, but unfortunately, her face wasn’t visible, and the orangutan was not quite close enough, so it just didn’t quite work. I knew, however, that the concept was viable after this experience, and was determined to keep trying. I just needed the perfect tree, and cameras that were better hidden.

Sequence of photos from remote camera of Jumi, adult female, climbing down from Chaetocarpus tree (Chaetocarpus sp.)Bornean OrangutanWurmbii Sub-species(Pongo pygmaeus wurmbii)Gunung Palung Orangutan ProjectCabang Panti Research StationGunung Palung National ParkWest Kalimantan ProvinceIsland of BorneoIndonesia

In 2015, we were back in Gunung Palung, and this time, the orangutan, Walimah, led me to an even better tree, the one where I finally got the shot I had dreamed of. It was an Artocarpus tree with a strangler fig (Ficus stupenda) growing on it. The fig tree had a large crop of ripe fruit that had attracted Walimah. She was soon followed by a young male named Ned, so there were two of them in the tree feeding. This tree was unique, because its crown was not touching any other neighboring trees, so the only way an orangutan could get to the fruit was to cross over from a small tree to the lower trunk of the tree, and then climb up the fig roots into the canopy. Perfect. When I saw the orangutan do this, I knew this was the best chance yet to get my shot. When the orangutans left after that first feeding session, I rigged a rope and climbed the tree and prepared camera positions. This time, I decided to use small GoPro cameras that were easier to hide, and could be controlled by wifi from the ground. For the next three days, I climbed the tree several times a day. Putting cameras out pre-dawn, and recovering them later. Walimah and Ned both visited each of those days, so I had a few chances to get the shot I wanted.

To get the prize-winning still image that appears here, I used the time-lapse mode on the GoPro, shooting two frames per second when the orangutan arrived and started climbing up the tree capturing a series of images as the orangutan approached and passed the camera position. Many of them were blurred, and on some visits, the orangutans climbed around the back of the trunk out of sight of the camera. But one of the frames, just as the young male Ned passed near the camera, captured the perfect moment of an orangutan in his element.

I like the title “Entwined Lives” for this image, and I have Roz Kidman Cox to thank for that as she came up with it. For me, it captures my goal to show the connection and interdependence of species in the rain forest. The fig tree depends on its host tree for support - the orangutan depends on the fig tree for food - and by analogy of course, they depend on the entire forest ecosystem. I do believe that photographs can have an impact on people’s appreciation of and understanding of nature, and I hope people will realize before it is too late, how much our human lives are “entwined” with nature on this planet.

Early morning fog/mist over the lowland dipterocarp rainforest of Gunung PalungGunung Palung Orangutan ProjectCabang Panti Research StationGunung Palung National ParkWest Kalimantan ProvinceIsland of BorneoIndonesia

[ To learn more about orangutan conservation and research at Gunung Palung and what you can do to help, check out Cheryl Knott’s website at www.saveGPorangutans.org]

11/17/16 11/17/16

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.

4/20/16 4/20/16

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.