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

I love photographing birds in flight, and a water tower at the research station provided me an elevated viewpoint where I could photograph macaws coming and going from some of their favorite trees. I like this image because I managed to capture the spectacular Scarlet Macaw with its wings and tail fully spread out as it came in for a landing, revealing the full extent of its striking primary colored plumage.

More Outtakes from our Macaw Story

The Central American subspecies of Scarlet Macaw is notably social, often gather in flocks at roosting and feeding sites, and that made for some striking photo opportunities like this one of a whole group landing in a tree.

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.

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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.

When I use the "Spray and Pray" Technique

I hope your summer is off to a good start. I recently returned from a trip serving as the “National Geographic Photography Expert” on a small-ship expedition to Norway’s Fjords and Arctic Svalbard with Lindblad Expeditions. It was exciting to see my first-ever polar bears and walruses. But as a bird photography enthusiast, I was especially enthralled by the seabird nesting cliffs where we were able to see thousands of murres, kittiwakes, and even a few puffins nesting.

During the voyage, my duties were to help guests get the most out of their own photography by giving talks and sharing examples of my own photography during the trip. I’ve heard some photo instructors who make fun of people who “spray and pray” with their cameras. In other words, just aiming their camera toward the subject and shooting a long burst hoping for something interesting. Well, as I share in the example below, there are times when combined with a little thought about framing, this approach actually makes sense - like when you have a swirling mass of birds and you want capture a moment with them in nice positions within the frame. Every technique has its place!

Bear Island Pinnacle

This scene captured the feeling of rich arctic birdlife for me. Super strong winds prevented us from approaching the nesting cliffs on Bear Island by zodiac, but the views from the ship itself, while not offering close views of the birds, were very dramatic. The clouds pouring down from the plateau above, the backlighting, and the dramatic pinnacle all added to the shot. But for it to be a successful image, I needed to have a satisfying arrangement of the birds. This of course was impossible to control, so my solution in a situation like this with the birds swirling is to just shoot a lot of images, sometimes known as the “Spray and Pray” technique. I then went through a couple hundred shots and chose this frame, which had a nice balance of birds around the frame and one nicely positioned right over the pinnacle.

Arctic Seabirds of Svalbard

Here are a few additional shots of seabirds I photographed around the cliffs of Bear Island and Svalbard.

A wider view of the scene in the image above shows the amazing clouds pouring down the slope to the sea. The closer you look, the more birds you see.

Common Murre like this one with its beautiful “spectacles” were abundant around the ship off Bear Island, a remote island between mainland Norway and the Svalbard Archipelago further north.

The Think-billed Murre was most abundant further north around Svalbard.

A curious behavior we observed below nesting cliffs were Thick-billed Murres fighting in the water. These are believed to be young non-breeding birds.

The nesting cliffs on Svalbard were a spectacular sight. Think-billed Murres occupy every small ledge, where they will soon balance their single eggs. They hadn’t laid yet when we were there, but were just claiming space.

A closer view shows how little space each bird has along the ledges. Murre eggs are very pointed on one end, so they roll in a very tight circle, making it much less likely they will roll off a ledge.

A wide view of the nesting cliffs at Alkefjellet, Svalbard. Amazingly, when pairs begin to swap incubating duties, they have to somehow remember the exact spot on the vast cliffs where their mate is waiting.

As always, thanks for tuning in. Hope you have enjoyed these images from my recent trip to the Arctic. Happy 4th of July if you are an American, and enjoy your summer!

Best regards,
Tim Laman

PS. Are you interested in improving your own photography? If you want to get beyond thinking about camera settings, and learn to think more creatively in the field, you might be interested in my online photo courses. Check them out at BIRD PHOTOGRAPHY MASTERCLASS.

Photographing Nesting Birds

This morning on a walk not far from my home in Lexington, Massachusetts, I found a Red-bellied Woodpecker’s nest! It’s that exciting time of year when birds in New England are nesting or preparing to nest, and us photographers have chances capture the associated bird behavior, which is always special.

Just remember whether you are photographing or just observing nesting birds, be super sensitive to the birds’ well-being. Pay close attention to their behavior, and make sure you are at a distance where the birds are comfortable approaching to swap incubation duties or make food deliveries to chicks. As long as you do it responsibly, finding and observing nesting birds is a very rewarding way to enjoy spring!

Below are a few images of nesting birds I’ve had a chance to photograph close to home over the past couple years. I’m excited to see what new opportunities this spring will bring!

Featured Image: The Landing

A tree swallow comes in for a landing at its nest opening as its mate looks out, ready to swap. The great thing about photographing birds visiting their nests is that you get multiple chances to capture the shot you are after. The timing is tricky of course with small fast moving birds like this. The approach is basically to fire a burst of images as you see the bird come in for a landing. I usually don’t even look through the viewfinder in situations like this, but frame up the shot on a tripod, and then watch the movements of the birds, and start firing early as they approach so I don’t miss the shot. The goal is to catch the wings in a nice position like this, and the extra bonus of the mate peering out really makes the shot.

A Few More Nesting Birds from New England

A male pileated woodpecker visits its nest in a dead pine to feed its ravenous chicks.

Barn swallows nesting in a barn in southern Massachusetts made for a fun and easy to shoot subject, since they were accustomed to people and horses coming in and out and paid no attention to me with my camera.

This bluebird is delivering food to its chicks in its nest in a dead white birch tree, in an old woodpecker hole. Woodpeckers create nest cavities used by many other species of birds.

Here you can see the same nest from a different angle, as the male bluebird enters with food.

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For you photographers out there, are you keen to get out and do more bird photography this spring? If you are 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”

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

Warmest regards,
Tim Laman

Kestrel Landing - Capturing the Moment

Dear Friends,

Every image has a story behind it, and as I worked on creating my Bird Photography Masterclass over recent weeks, I came across many images in my archives that sparked memories.  Birds are creatures of habit, and one of the “tricks of the trade” in wildlife photography is being a good observer, and anticipating what birds are going to do.  “Capturing a moment” in bird photography isn’t just a matter of luck.

This series on the kestrel landing didn’t make it into my course, but is a classic example of how being a good observer of bird behavior can help you anticipate and enjoy an interesting moment of action.  I think this is something that all fans of watching birds and other wildlife in the field can appreciate, whether you are a photographer or not.  Honing our powers of observation makes for greater appreciation and enjoyment of our time in nature.

Kestrel Landing

I shot this image a few years ago while on assignment at the Annenberg Center at Sunnylands, in Palm Desert, California, where I was photographing birds on their property for an exhibition in their visitor center.  I roamed the property daily, and soon became familiar with the haunts of certain individual birds.  This kestrel is one example.  I often saw him perched in the same trees, and as he hunted around the property, he often returned to some of the same perches.  A simple shot of the bird perched wasn’t very interesting, so I had the idea of getting him coming in for a landing with wings fully spread.  One day when I saw him using this particular perch, I decided to stake him out when the sun was in a position to create nice backlighting on his wings.  Once I framed my shot with my lens and camera on a tripod, and focused on the landing spot, it was just a matter of waiting him out, with finger always poised on my cable release (less tiring than having my hand on the camera all the time).  He made a circuit to several other perches as he hunted, but eventually came back to this one.  When I saw him approach, I hit the trigger before he entered the frame and fired a burst at 12 frames per sec.  You can see the full sequence below.  The other frames aren’t worth keeping, but I succeeded in capturing the peak moment with wings and tail spread catching the light just a moment before he landed.  

The Kestrel Landing Sequence

Here is the sequence of images that came before and after the “keeper” shot.  For the camera nerds these were shot with a Canon 1DXII, 400 mm f2.8 w/ 2X, 1/2000 sec, f 8, ISO 1600.  The key thing being the 1/2000 sec to freeze the motion.

Shot 1:  Entering the frame.

Shot 2:  The keeper shot.

Shot 3:  Just landed, but awkward position.

Shot 4:  Perched and rather boring.

If you are a wildlife photographer and interested in checking out my new course  BIRD PHOTOGRAPHY MASTERCLASS - THE CREATIVE PROCESS, you can visit the course website to learn more.  You can even sign up to watch one of the eight lessons for free to get a sense if the course is right for you.  

Thanks for tuning in as always.  Whether or not you take a camera on your walks in nature, see if you can learn the habits of your local birds and anticipate their actions.  It can be very rewarding.

Warmest regards,

Tim Laman

PS.   If you haven’t ordered your calendars yet, there is still plenty of time to get them before the year end.  Check out my six different bird-themed calendars HERE.

Back to Borneo Again

Greetings once again from Borneo, where I’m still in the field in Gunung Palung National Park, photographing everything from orangutans to pit vipers as I document the incredible biodiversity of this park for National Geographic.
 
My forthcoming book, Bird Planet, is in production and advanced copies have already reached my studio!   Since I have had back-to-back assignments here in Indonesia, I haven’t been home to see it yet myself, but my wife and assistant, both very unbiased judges to be sure, say it looks awesome!  It will be available Oct 4, but in the meantime, here is a little more background on the book.  

Preening Mallard

Henry David Thoreau famously spent two years living in a simple cabin he built in the woods at Walden Pond and wrote about the importance of our connection to nature, becoming one of the pioneers of environmental thinking. I live just 5 miles from Walden Pond, and it is one of my favorite spots for escaping into nature for a while with a camera to challenge myself to create interesting images at a simple pond in New England, and to remind me that there is beauty in nature everywhere and that you don’t have to be in Borneo or Antarctica to appreciate it.  Here a male mallard preens amid reflections of autumn colors on Walden Pond.

As you may have guessed, birds are one of my favorite subjects to photograph and I have wanted to publish my own book for years.  Besides the satisfaction of sharing my work, I feel that appreciating the beauty of birds can inspire people to be better stewards of the wild places all over the world that birds need to thrive, and I wanted to share my images to spread that appreciation.  Along came the Covid-19 pandemic which reduced my travel schedule greatly, and allowed me to block out the time to create the book.  Working through my archive to select the images, and writing the accompanying text was a perfect Covid project.

For this book, I looked through my entire archive to select what I felt were my strongest bird images.  Every place that I have photographed birds, whether on assignments for National Geographic magazine, the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, or any other group as well as all my personal photography trips were all fair game.  My goal was simply that this selection would represent my best bird photography.

To celebrate the publication of the book, we have created a special print gallery in my fine art store, featuring the most artistic images from the book that are now available as art works for your home.  Visit the gallery at  timlamanfineart.com/BirdPlanetCollection.  The above 3 panoramic images are available for purchase:  Cormorant, Cliff and Pine (Pano), The Spoonbill Tree and Marbled Godwit at Sunset.  As my newsletter subscribers I'd like to offer you a head start on my Bird Planet Collection sale.  Please use code BIRDS at checkout. We also still have a few of my signed editions of BIRD PLANET that comes bundled with a 12 inch signed print available for pre-order.  Please visit the website HERE to see your options.  Thanks again for following along on my journey and for your support.  I’ll be looking forward to getting home to New England in time to enjoy some fall colors (and to get a look at my new book!) 

All the best,
Tim 

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.

Bornean White-bearded Gibbon (Hylobates albibarbis) in the canopy of a strangler fig (Ficus dubia) searching for ripe 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.

Photographing My Local Nesting Birds

Dear Friends,

I hope you have been having a nice spring and relishing the new life all around us here in the Northern Hemisphere.  These past two springs, due to the pandemic, I have been traveling less than usual, and focusing my lenses on more local projects.  One of those has been a filming project with Connecticut-based Coneflower Studios to document the lives of woodpeckers and their importance in the ecosystem.  Did you know that woodpeckers create cavities that are used by over forty species of birds for nesting just in North America?  While working on the film project, which is now going into post-production, I was also able to capture some still photos.  

Stay tuned here, and I’ll let you know when the film is coming out.  In the mean time, I’ve selected a few stills below to share.  I had never spent much effort to observe or photograph the pileated woodpecker before this, but this impressive bird has now become one of my local favorites.  Hope you enjoy the shots below!

The Ant Specialist

The pileated woodpecker, our largest woodpecker in North America (assuming the ivory-billed woodpecker is indeed extinct), is rather surprisingly, an ant specialist.  Although the prey are small, they are abundant, and the pileated’s powerful size allows it to excavate deep into trees where its favorite carpenter ants make their large colonies.  I’m lucky enough to have these birds occupying the woods right behind my house in Lexington, Massachusetts, and one day my daughter spotted this male working on a dead tree right from the house.  I grabbed my camera and started photographing, gradually and very deliberately moving my tripod closer and closer.  Within about 30 minutes, the bird was still busy excavating multiple holes in the same tree and feeding, and tolerated my presence close enough to get this shot with an 800 mm lens.  I knew he was eating ants, but because the bird was using its long tongue to probe the tunnels, and bringing the ants directly into its mouth, I never saw him with an ant until this one moment, when he leaned back, and one ant that almost got away dangled from his beak!

The Cavity Nesters

Woodpeckers excavate cavities in dead trees for roosting and nesting, but they are not the only birds that use them.  Abandoned woodpecker holes are used by many other species as well, so they play a particularly important role in the community of birds.  All the images below were made not far from my home in Massachusetts.

When pileated woodpecker chicks reach a certain size, they stick their little heads out of their nest cavity and beg loudly when a parent approaches with food, making for a pretty entertaining scene.

I found a pair of bluebirds nesting in this small woodpecker hole in a dead white birch tree along the edge of a beaver pond.  Here you see the male delivering a caterpillar to the chicks.

This pair of shots shows the changing of the guard as the two parents swap incubation duties at their nest.  These tree swallows are nesting in a tree cavity that I hollowed out myself.  I think birds take even more readily to nest boxes made out of hollow logs than the more typical ones made from boards.

 Barred owls like these also often nest in tree cavities as well.  This is not necessarily a woodpecker hole, but who knows, perhaps this rotted out hollow in the tree could have started from a large excavation by a Pileated Woodpecker many years ago!

Thanks for tuning in to my adventures, and stay tuned.  Soon, I’m heading off to Borneo after a nearly three year break, and I’ll be sharing updates on my social channels!  

Stay safe everyone, and be sure to get your dose of nature therapy!

Warmest regards,

Tim Laman

PS.  We are partnering with the Aves Gallery to showcase some of my very large format, Limited Edition, Bird-of-Paradise prints at the Ketchum Art Festival, from July 8-10 in Sun Valley, Idaho.  If you are curious about my Limited Edition Birds-of-Paradise prints, you can learn more HERE.

Capturing the "Ibis Moon" Image

Dear Friends,

I hope this finds you well and feeling optimistic about 2021.  It’s going to be another challenging year, but I think things are looking up.  Stepping outside last night to have a look at the full moon, I was reminded of my image below.  It’s not often I can include the moon in an image of birds, but when it happens, it makes for something special.  I hope you enjoy the story behind the image.

Ibis Moon

I was in the remote outer delta of the Orinoco River in Venezuela, in pursuit of images of one of the most brightly colored birds on the planet, the Scarlet Ibis.  The mangrove islands in the delta provided these birds with the perfect roosting site, safe from predators, and close to the mudflats where they foraged at low tide.  Every afternoon, ibises would come flying back to their roosts, and this give me the chance for some flight shots.  One afternoon as the sun neared the horizon, the waxing gibbous moon, a couple days away from full, was rising in the eastern sky and I noticed that some of the small groups of ibises sometimes passed almost in front of the moon.  Moving the small boat I was shooting from to line up the approaching ibises with the moon the best I could, I started tracking and shooting the flying birds as they passed near the moon.  This image was the result, and I love the way the composition is balanced between the three birds and the moon.  I also love the simple but bold color palette of the image.  It is rare to have a color photograph that has basically just two bright colors, the red birds and the blue sky.  It is very satisfying to capture a moment like this in a still photograph, which you know will never ever be repeated.  It’s a one-of-a-kind image.

IBIS MOON is part of my Limited Edition selection of prints

Valentine's Day Print Sale!

A pair of Red-crowned Cranes perform a duet during their courtship ritual in Hokkaido, Japan while snow gently falls.  Red-crowned Cranes symbolize love, long life, good luck, happiness, and fidelity in marriage.  What could be better for a Valentines Day gift than a print of these wonderful birds?

Flash sale on now till Monday, Feb 1.  20% off, and paper prints guaranteed arrival by Feb 14 if you order by Feb 1 (Domestic).  If you would like a beautiful acrylic print, it takes 8 days to create so you would need to choose 2-day shipping for domestic arrival before Valentine's Day.  Please see the gallery HERE for the full selection.

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!

Thanks-A-Million Announcement!

Dear Friends,

In honor of hitting 1 million followers on Instagram, I'm running a massive print sale!

Here's the deal:

Through July 3, 2019, ten of the most-liked images from my Instagram feed are available as prints at special, discounted prices:

→12x12" for $100 (33% off)
→15x15" for $150 (33% off)

The prints look fantastic both alone and in multi-print arrangements. Each is digitally signed by me on the white border.

I'll link you to my super easy-to-use online store below where you can browse the collection and take advantage of the sale. I hope you'll find the perfect image or set of images for your wall space. 

Shop the "Thanks a Million" Sale »

Thanks so much for all of your support and interest in my photographs and stay tuned from some surprises as the sale rolls along.

-Tim

P.S. - Here's a peek at 5 of the 10 available prints. To see the rest, check out the full gallery.

Thanks a Million Teaser

Thanks to your interest in my photos and stories, I recently hit 1,000,000 followers on Instagram!

It's been a busy few days here in Indonesia, but I've had a little bit of downtime to think about how to properly celebrate the occasion, and I think I came up with the perfect idea...

I'll fill you in tomorrow - stay tuned, and thanks so much to everyone who helped me reach this incredible milestone. 

All the best, Tim

New Galleries Including Birds-of-Paradise!

Tim Laman Fine Art is pleased to announce our new updated gallery including some of Tim’s most iconic images of Birds-of-Paradise.  Now, all prints will be personally signed by Tim in the white border below the image. 

We know many of you have been waiting for this, so thanks for your patience.  Now is your chance to own and brighten up your home or office with a signed, Tim Laman original print of the world’s most incredible birds.  If you don’t see your favorite Bird-of-Paradise image in the gallery, just email us at studio@timlaman.com.  We will be adding more soon and are taking requests!

Buy This Print Now!

Tim sends out personal emails to keep you up to date on his current projects, like the new website for selling his prints.  Now all of Tim's prints will be autographed.  Please check back often to see additional galleries of Tim Laman's work. 

Browse Tim Laman's Art Galleries

My New Newsletter

Dear Friends,

I’ve decided to use this format to share my work with you, where I can go beyond the brevity of social media and give you a little more.  I’ll share a favorite photo and the story behind it, and keep you up to date on my major projects.  So welcome and thanks for following along on my journey.

Over the past two years, I’ve worked on a unique project that has recently come to fruition: “The Birds of Sunnylands”.  In 2016, I received a unique commission from the Annenberg Foundation.  The mission was to document the birdlife of the Sunnylands Center and Gardens, their sanctuary in the Coachella Valley, California, to create a gallery exhibit for their visitor center.  So in 2017 and 2018, I made eight trips in different seasons photograph birds there.  I really enjoyed this project.  While very different from my remote editorial work on subjects like Birds-of-Paradise or Orangutans, it allowed me to focus on the artistic aspects of my photography, and as always, to try to create images that share the beauty of the natural world and inspire people to care about leaving space on this planet for wildlife.

Dining By Moonlight - Anna's Hummingbird

It was early October in the Coachella Valley, and as usual, I was out before sunrise.  As I passed a row of honeysuckle bushes where I had often photographed hummingbirds, I noticed the full moon beginning to set behind them just as glow of dawn cast a little light on the flowers.  I knew the hummingbirds would be starting to forage, and I had an idea -  a hummingbird silhouette against the moon.  The trick was to get a hummingbird in the right spot before the moon disappeared.  I found some flowers that lined up with the moon, got ready to shoot, and as the hummingbirds began their foraging rounds, I gambled that one would come to that cluster of flowers.  My efforts were rewarded, and I captured this unique shot. 

The above image, along with fifty other images from this project, are now on exhibit at the Sunnylands Center through next spring.  They are printed in large format on recycled aluminum that I have to say looks pretty stunning.  So I hope if you are in the Palm Springs area at all this winter, you will take the opportunity to check out the exhibit. 

I’d also like to take this chance to announce that in order to allow people to purchase the same beautiful metal prints that are on exhibit at the Sunnylands Center this winter, we have set up a new online store called “Tim Laman Fine Art”.  Please have a look, if for no other reason than to see a broader selection of this work.

Tim Laman Fine Art

Finally, I’ve taken the liberty of adding you to my email list because we have met or corresponded in the past, but of course, you are free to unsubscribe below if you wish. 

Thanks for reading and all the best,  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 BBC film: Attenborough's Paradise Birds

If you are in the UK, or anywhere you can get BBC2, don’t miss Sir David Attenborough’s newest film on the Birds of Paradise called “Attenborough’s Paradise Birds”. It is airing at 8:00 PM on Thursday, Jan 29, 2015.

Many video shots and sequences made by Tim Laman and Ed Scholes are found throughout the film, including this title shot which you may recognize if you know Tim’s work:

See the trailer here:

ATTENBOROUGH'S PARADISE BIRDS TRAILER

Featured in the film are Tim Laman and Ed Scholes and their project to photograph all the species of Birds of Paradise, including a sequence where they share rare footage of Carola’s Parotia with Sir David in the BBC studios.

Shortly after broadcast, the program will apparently be available at the BBC2 website so check back here:

BBC2 WEBSITE: ATTENBOROUGH'S PARADISE BIRDS

Exploring the Biodiversity of Raja Ampat, Indonesia

Wayag Islands are an uninhabited group of uplifted limestone (karst) islands NW of Waigeo.

Indonesia is one of the biologically richest countries in the world, and I have had a long-term interest in exploring remote corners of this amazing country.  From the rain forests of Borneo to the coral reefs of the Raja Ampat Islands, to the mountains of Papua, I have made dozens of expeditions all over the archipelago, and will continue to do so in coming years.  There is so much to explore here.

See my full gallery of images of the biodiversity of the Raja Ampat Islands at www.timlaman.com.