Galapagos Photo Expedition - Day 6
28 Feb 2013
This day was spent on the island of Santa Cruz. The highlight in terms of natural history and photography was a trip up into the uplands to visit a nature reserve where many of the Galapagos Giant Tortoises were roaming freely around the property. It was overcast, and the light was nice and even for photographing these animals in their lush surroundings.
We fanned out and soon found several individuals, some feeding, some apparently just hanging out. One male was particularly active, and several photo workshop members and I watched and followed him for some time.
First I got some nice tight shots of him feeding...
Then I experimented with a 45 mm Tilt-Shift lens I had brought along, shooting wide open and tilting the plane of the depth of field to throw the background out of focus severely. Just as I was lying on the ground trying this out, I got a great big yawn from the tortoise which I captured here....
Just before we were about to leave, the most active male suddenly started pursuing a nearby female. It was the most action we had seen all day and it was great to see and capture this behavior.....
Finally the male attempted to mount and mate with the female. An amazing sight for such ungainly large animals, and a fitting end to our afternoon of photographing these ancient creatures....
The Timeless Galapagos Islands
See a series of blog posts under "Expedition Notebook" for photos and notes from my trip working as a photo instructor with Lindblad/National Geographic Photo Expeditions.
Galapagos Photo Expedition - Day 5
27 Feb 2013
We have been having some beautiful weather this week, but this afternoon, a heavy downpour caught us by surprise while we were on a photo hike at Puerto Egas on Santiago Island. This sent many folks scurrying back to the ship, but for me, it was just the kind of weather event that can add a lot of drama and atmosphere to pictures, and I was excited to keep shooting as long as I reasonably could.
When it started pouring, I struggled to keep the rain off my cameras, but I kept shooting as long as I reasonably could. This coastline of lava and other volcanic deposits was absolutely teaming with Sally Lightfoot Crabs and Marine Iguanas.
My favorite shot was when I spotted a crab starting to climb over an iguana that completely ignored it. The streaking rain (at 1/750sec) and bouncing spray added great atmosphere to the image, and combined with the great interaction between the creatures involved, made for a unique image.
Once everything was wet, the colors were even more saturated, and the somewhat skittish crabs were more approachable than usual, and allowed me to get this wide shot with a large number of crabs. It was a great opportunity to try to capture some images of very well photographed subjects that had a unique feel to them.
When we found this Marine Iguana waiting out the rain in a tidepool, I kept the shutter speed high to freeze those splashing water drops. This shot is more about capturing the humor of the iguana toughing out the downpour, but it capped off an exciting afternoon of with shooting in the rain as the climax before we stowed our gear and headed back to the ship.
Exploring the Galapagos Islands
For the past two weeks, I have been exploring the Galapagos Islands as part of the staff on the National Geographic Endeavor. The first week was a Natural History Expedition, and this past week was a Photo Expedition, where I was part of a team of Lindblad/National Geographic photo instructors along to help guests with their photography. Check out my other postings for photos from each day and some anecdotes from the field.
Galapagos Photo Expedition - Day 4
26 Feb 2013
Today’s highlight was snorkeling along the coast of Tagus Cove on Isabela Island. This is a famous anchorage where not only the ship 'Beagle' on which Darwin travelled anchored, but many other ships over the generations have made a stopover. The cliffs of this cove drop straight into the sea and offer fabulous snorkeling with Green Sea Turtles, Flightless Cormorants, Galapagos Penguins, and the ubiquitous Galapagos Sea Lions.
One sea lion in particular was very relaxed and curious and approached me many times, taking a close look at the dome port on my camera housing, allowing me to get the shot above.
Galapagos Photo Expedition - Day 3
25 Feb 2014
We had an otherworldly morning on Fernandina Island. We landed at dawn, in a hazy, humid overcast onto bare lava rock. Piles of ancient, primitive looking Marine Iguanas were everywhere on the fresh black lava. A truly prehistoric feeling, like being dropped into a primeval world.
I worked on some ideas of how to capture that feeling. First I concentrated on very slow shutter pan blurs of iguanas moving over the lava as they went out to the ocean for their morning feed. It seemed to be working and you can see one example above.
After over three hours of working the lava terrain and its wildlife, including sea lions, Flightless Cormorants, Blue-footed Boobies, and Sally Lightfoot Crabs, we headed back to the boat for a quick switch to snorkeling gear, and headed back to the coast of Fernandina by Zodiac. The shoreline was again black lava, covered in iguanas. The water was rich in plankton and basically like green soup (these are the rich colder waters of the western Galapagos, and area of upwelling sea), but no sooner had I jumped in than I saw three sea turtles right below me. I spent my snorkeling time searching for the Marine Iguanas in the water, and eventually had some luck. I was able to follow one foraging iguana and approach and photograph it as it grazed on algae. I was excited to be able to capture this unique behavior.
Truly a great morning with in this amazing place.
Galapagos Photo Expedition - Day 2
24 Feb 2014
We landed just after sunrise at North Seymour Island which was simply teaming with wildlife. The hard part all morning was just deciding what to concentrate on. As we walked the loop trail that first followed the coast and then passed through the scrubby Palo Santo forest, we ran the gauntlet past nursing Galapagos Sea Lion pups, displaying Blue-footed Boobies, preening Brown Pelicans, basking Marine Iguanas, a frigatebird nesting colony, and numerous endemic Land Iguanas. A real highlight in terms of amazing animal behavior was seeing a Land Iguana feeding on a cactus pad. Hard to believe they can handle such a prickly diet.
Galapagos Photo Expedition - Day 1
This week I am working as part of the photo instructional team on a National Geographic/Lindblad Photo Expedition in the Galapagos Islands. I am going to share one or more photos taken each day during the trip.
23 Feb 2013
On the very afternoon that the photo expedition participants reached the ship National Geographic Endeavor, we made our first landing at Bachas Beach on Santa Cruz Island and got an immediate introduction to the riches of Galapagos wildlife. The black lava rock outcrops along the beach were crawling with the classic Galapagos species, the Sally Lightfoot crab with its amazing colors. After a hike to a brackish lagoon to photograph a lone Greater Flamingo and some stilts, I worked the crabs in the late afternoon light. My favorite shot of the day came when the sun popped out of the clouds just before sunset, and I got down low with a 400 mm.
Galapagos Bound
I'm in Quito, Ecuador tonight, and will be flying out to the Galapagos Islands tomorrow morning, working on assignment for NG Expeditions as part of the photo instructional team. This will be my fourth trip to the Islands, and it is always exciting to go back. One of the great places on the planet for wildlife photography and learning about natural history. Located 1000 km off the West coast of South America, they are just an amazing laboratory for evolution. Stay tuned for some photos from the field over the coming days.
Filming the Magnificent Riflebird Display
This is one of my favorite Bird-of-Paradise video sequences because the behavior and wing sounds are so amazing, and we captured it from two angles. The Magnificent Riflebird usually performs his display on a large horizontal vine. In 2009, Ed Scholes and I, with help from our local guide Zeth Wonggor, located the display vine you see here deep in the forest of the Bird's Head Peninsula region of West Papua, Indonesia. The male was visiting the vine fairly often, and calling a lot from this area. But he only performed his full display when a female came to watch him, which was very rarely. We had two blinds at this site, in order to film from two different angles, and we spent a ridiculous number of hours - Ed estimated he spents 80 hours, and I also spent a lot but was alternating between this blind and others for King and Lesser Birds-of-Paradise in the same area so my total was a bit less. That is a lot of time to sit in a dark hut being attacked by mosquitos, but to us, it was worth it because we succeeded in capturing this amazing display. And being able to see it from two angles just makes it so much richer.
One of the really fascinating aspects of this display is the sound the bird makes with its wings. This loud swishing sound made every time he shakes his wings we presume is made by the feathers somehow rubbing together, but the exact mechanism of how the this works is one of the biological mysteries of birds-of-paradise that remains to be solved.
Filmed entirely with Canon 5D Mark II cameras and Canon lenses 600 mm f4 and 200 mm f2.0. The audio which highlights the birds amazing wing sounds was recorded with a shotgun mike placed outside the blind below the display vine.
Capturing the Red Bird-of-Paradise Display
MY HIGHEST BLIND EVER YIELDS A CLASSIC PHOTO
"I distinctly remember one morning, seeing an incredible starry sky as I inched up the rope in the blackness. It was a surreal feeling, like I was climbing a rope into outer space."
It was in 2004, during the first year of my birds-of-paradise project. I was working on an assignment for Nat Geo, and the objective was not to photograph all the birds-of-paradise (that came later), but to capture some of the most iconic, most extraordinary, most beautiful species. In my estimation, the Red Bird-of-Paradise made that short list.
That’s easy to say, but the Red Bird-of-Paradise was definitely not one of the easiest birds-of-paradise to photograph. It only inhabits a handful of islands off the western tip of New Guinea, in the Indonesian region called the Raja Ampat Islands. We worked with the late Kris Tindege as our guide, however, which simplified the logistics considerably. All my collaborator Ed Scholes and I had to do was to fly half way around the world to Jakarta, then east, hopping islands across Indonesia, to meet Kris in the outpost town of Sorong. From there we travelled by boat to the island of Batanta, hired porters in a village, and hiked up into the mountains and set up a camp. Then we just had to find the birds.
While I concentrated on photographing the more readily accessed Wilson’s Bird-of-Paradise for several days (it displays near the ground), Kris and Ed scouted for the ideal display tree of the Red Bird-of-Paradise. Finally one day they came back to camp saying they had found a tree where males had actively displayed that morning. There was just one catch. It appeared to be the tallest tree in this whole area. I went to take a look at it and we watched the evening action at the tree. There was plenty of activity, and the location seemed very promising. But the tree climb was going to be a problem. In trying to keep my gear weight within reason, I had only brought my lightweight bow, and two rope sections that only totaled 70 meters in length. It wasn’t going to be enough to reach up and over a branch and back to the ground. I also knew my bow would only be able to launch an arrow carrying a fishing line to about 25 meters up. I was going to have to climb this tree in stages.
I was back the next morning after the birds had left. After a few tries, I got my arrow over one of the large branches that looked like it wasn’t even half way up the tree. It was a start. Pulling my climbing rope up and over, I then climbed the rope using ascenders and a harness, and hauled myself up onto the big branch when I got there. By tossing a throw bag (basically a beanbag on a cord) over ever higher branches, I pulled my rope higher and kept climbing it until I was getting up to the level where the birds had been displaying. As I rose above the crowns of the surrounding trees, an amazing view opened out over the rain forest of Batanta. In fact, I could see not only the forested slopes of Batanta stretching below me, but all the way down to the coast and across the strait to the neighboring island of Salawati. This narrow body of water was actually a major barrier for birds-of-paradise. On this side lived Red and Wilson’s Birds-of-Paradise. On the other side, Lesser, King, and Twelve-wired Birds-of-Paradise were found. The big difference is that Salawati Island was once part of mainland New Guinea and so it has the same birds species as the nearby mainland. However, Batanta has been separated by deep water for millions of years from New Guinea. Since Birds-of-Paradise never cross water gaps, even if they are only one kilometer wide, ancestral birds that got to Batanta at some point when it did bump against New Guinea have evolved into Red and Wilson’s – two very unique birds-of-paradise. After taking in this view, I kept climbing.
When attempting to photograph birds displaying in the canopy, what I usually do is to climb a tree adjacent to the one the birds are using, not the same one. But this tree was so much bigger than surrounding trees that this wasn’t an option. Instead, what I was going to try was to see if I could get up high enough in the opposite side of the tree crown from where the birds displayed. Fortunately as I got near, I saw that the branches on the part of the tree I was climbing looked healthy and were actually reaching up to about the same level as the dead branches on the other side that the birds used. I was starting to get into the upper reaches of the crown however, where the main branches were no bigger than my thigh, and I made sure to keep safety lines attached to lower points on the trunk. I finally found a place where I could make a seat by tying several poles across between two branches, and hang my camouflage material to make a simple blind. The distance to the branches where the birds were displaying, however, was borderline. In other words, I was worried about the blind spooking the birds from being a bit too close. So I decided that for the first morning, instead of climbing up there, I would get some insurance shots by mounting a camera, focusing it on the main display perch, and triggering it from the ground with a remote control. This would also give the birds a day to get used to the blind without my being in it. Before I headed down I tied my climbing rope off high in the tree, and dropped the end to the ground. Since I knew the length of the rope, when I got to the ground and measured how many meters were left, I discovered that my blind was exactly 50 meters (165 feet) above the ground. It was the highest blind I had ever constructed.
The next morning, I did get a few shots on my remote camera, but they were not satisfactory. But the good thing was, the birds accepted the blind and came to their regular perches that first morning. So for the next several days, I got into an early routine. Rising well before dawn, I hiked to the site and climbed my rope in the dark, hauling my camera and lenses in a pack dangling below me. I distinctly remember one morning, breaking out into the more open upper canopy and seeing an incredible starry sky as I inched up the rope in the blackness with my headlamp off. It was a surreal feeling, like I was climbing a rope into outer space.
The real excitement came though, once I got set up in the blind and it started to get light. One male Red Bird-of-Paradise in particular came repeatedly, as did some other males and females on occasion. The moment came when one male became excited by a nearby female and went to the broken off branch that appeared to be his prime display spot. He flipped upside down and hopped downwards along the branch while twisting back and forth. For just a moment, his tail wires fell into that perfect position framing his wings in the perfect heart shape – and I got the shot. I knew I had seen something special from a viewpoint perhaps never recorded before.
An amazing thing about this bird is that when he perches upright, the two flattened, wire-like tail feathers just hang down with a few twists in them. Only when he goes into his inverted position during display do you see how they work, framing and accentuating his body perfectly. I was lucky enough to capture that moment. There is always a bit of a feeling of luck when the elements come together to make a good wildlife photograph. But you don’t get a chance to experience that serendipity unless you make the effort to be there, in the right position, and ready!
Exploring Mangrove Biodiversity - the Forests in the Sea
Mangroves are the trees that can stand to have their roots in salt water - the buffer between land and sea. They form incredibly important nursery grounds for marine life, and habitat for lots of other wildlife as well. They also protect coastlines and provide lots of useful resources. I was tapped to do a story on Mangroves for National Geographic magazine, apparently because I have a high tolerance for mud and mosquitos.
See my full photo gallery of mangrove images at www.timlaman.com.
Birds-of-Paradise Project Website Launch
It has been in the works for months, and has finally been launched - the Birds-of-Paradise Project Website.Check it out and you will find a huge amount of material on many aspects of the birds and the project itself.
Highly Honored in Nature's Best
In the 2012 Nature's Best Windland Smith Rice International Awards, this picture of two striped triplefins resting on the surface of a sponge was highly honored in the category, Small World. An exhibition of the winning images will be on display in the National Museum of Natural History starting June 2013.
One Million Views on YouTube!
People around the world seem to be captivated by Birds-of-Paradise! The five minute video introduction to Ed Scholes and my Birds-of-Paradise Project posted on YouTube on 10 October 2012 has reached 1,000,000 views today, 23 Jan 2013.
This video was produced by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology Multimedia department's Eric Liner and John Bowman using video material shot by me, Ed Scholes, and Eric Liner. Eric and sound recordist Ian Fein, who also contributed to the video, accompanied us on one of our expeditions to New Guinea in 2009 to gather material for this video.
Why has this video captured the interest of so many? The birds are spectacular, and their behaviors otherworldly, but I think a big part of it is the story of exploration. I think it surprises people that in this day, there are still places on the planet that harbor such spectacular creatures as the birds-of-paradise that remain relatively unexplored. Ed Scholes and I were able to be the first to document all 39 species of this famous family of birds in the wild. If we are just documenting such a extraordinary group of birds for the first time, just imagine all the other little-know life forms out there in the wilds of New Guinea and elsewhere that remain to be documented and studied!
It is our sincere hope that the Birds-of-Paradise project will inspire others to keep exploring our planet. There is much to discover, document, and protect.
Snap Me!
On one of our first Bird-of-Paradise Project trips back in 2004, we were driving a rural road in the Western Highlands of New Guinea. Passing a small village, we noticed a huge gathering of people. There appeared to be a traditional ceremony going on. We stopped and saw that indeed, there was a ‘singsing’, or traditional dance in progress, with dancers wearing huge headdresses of bird-of-paradise feathers, faces and bodies painted, muscles rippling and carrying battle-axes. This was exactly what I wanted to photograph, since I was very interested in documenting the use of bird-of-paradise plumes in New Guinea culture. This was not a performance for tourists, but a real village ceremony where bird-of-paradise plumes still played an important role. As I approached the fringes of the crowd, I pulled my camera out of my shoulder bag. Just then, I noticed a man striding toward me from the right. He was a dancer who had finished performing. His face and torso were painted in bold patterns, and his headdress made him look even more imposing. As he moved toward me, he was shouting something I couldn’t understand, and at the same time he was pulling his stone axe out of his belt. I became a little concerned. I tried to signal my friendly intentions with a forced smile and started shoving my camera back into the bag thinking that perhaps the sight of my camera was what had offended him. Then I finally understood what he was saying. “Snap me! Snap me!” he was yelling. He wanted to pose for a picture (with his axe)! I obliged and received a friendly reception after that. We visited the village again the next day for the continuation of the ceremony, when I took the photo above of a group of dancers sporting a huge number of bird-of-paradise plumes.
Konica Minolta Gallery in Japan
Tim's work is on display at the Konica Minolta building in Japan. Entitled "Biodiversity II", it includes a wide variety of Tim's best work. This is Tim's second Biodiversity gallery in this space. Also included is a short movie of his video work in the rainforest.
The Story Behind a Dream Shot
This is one of my true "dream shots". I had imagined a shot like this with a bird-of-paradise in the foreground and a view out over the rain forest for years, but never found a place where I might be able to make it. Finally in the Aru Islands in 2010, I saw my opportunity. But the problem was getting the camera in the right place. I solved the problem by developing what I called the "leaf-cam", a camera well hidden in leaves, and controlled remotely.
Here is a short video that tells the story of how I set this up, and finally got the shot.
Exploring the Biodiversity of Raja Ampat, Indonesia
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.
Borneo - My Rain Forest Roots
Borneo is where I got my start in exploring the tropical rain forest and getting really serious about my wildlife photography. I first went to Borneo as a research assistant for a year. Then I did my Ph.D. research there over several years. I turned my Ph.D. project exploring the rain forest canopy and studying strangler fig trees and associated wildlife into my first National Geographic magazine article back in July 1997. Since then, I have been back to Borneo over 25 times working on various National Geographic articles and other projects. It will always hold a special place in my heart.
This photograph of Rhinoceros Hornbills in the rain forest canopy is one that I dreamed about for years. It was actually on my very first day in the rain forest in Borneo that I saw a Rhinoceros Hornbill flying over head, way up in the upper canopy, and thought "I have to find a way to get up there to get pictures in the canopy". It took many years for me to perfect my tree climbing skills and create the opportunity to get this shot by rigging a blind very high up in a large dipterocarp tree on a hillside near a fruiting Ficus tree. I spent a great many hours in that blind over many days, until one day a group of hornbills stopped in this tree before visiting the Ficus, and I got this shot.
See a full gallery of my Borneo rain forest images at www.timlaman.com.