Maine's Fall Splendor

I hope you are all doing well, and if you live in the Northern Hemisphere, have been able to get out and enjoy the fall season.  Since I’m not traveling internationally quite yet, I took the chance to spend time up in Maine earlier this month, where the fall foliage this year was quite extraordinary, and I thought I’d take this chance to share a few of my new images.  

You can also scroll down and check out my latest idea on how to share my images and spread our shared love of birds.  I’ve created a line of 5x7 inch greeting cards featuring my backyard birds-in-the-snow and other images.  Have a look and maybe you’ll find one that will make a perfect holiday card.

My timing was perfect on my trip to Acadia National Park this October, and the fall colors were at their peak.  After passing Upper Hadlock Pond and seeing the potential for a beautiful image of the hillside with the amazingly variety of color in the trees, I kept checking back to try to get the right conditions.  I actually waited till after sunset on this day, when the afterglow reflecting from clouds in the West lit the scene evenly.  The wind also died at sunset, as often happens, and I got the perfect reflection that I was hoping for.  For you photography enthusiasts who like to hear these details, I made the broad panoramic image below taking a series of seven vertical images, each about 50% overlapping, and used Lightroom to stitch them together.  Since nothing was moving in the scene, this worked beautifully, and the result is very high resolution file that I could easily print ten feet across if I wanted.  The square portion above it just a section from the center of the larger image.  I love the amazing variety of hues of yellow, orange, pink, and red that came out in the trees under this soft light.  And of course, a perfect reflection just ads a lot to an image.  

Loons In The Fall

Some of you may recall that last summer, I spent considerable time in Maine filming loons for our short film “Loons of Mount Desert Island”.  (You can see it here if you missed it).  In October, the loons had not left yet for the winter, so I went to check on them and photograph them amidst the fall color reflections.

This adult is molting to its winter plumage, and you can see the bold black and white summer markings beginning to be replaced by the more muted winter feathers.

Juvenile loons, like the one you see here in the middle (easily recognized by its pale bill) will soon make the bold move of leaving their natal lake and their parents, and flying off to the ocean to spend the winter.

It was spectacular to see the loons swimming among the colorful fall reflections in the lake.  Adult loons may remain on the lakes for several more weeks, but need to leave before the lake freezes over for the winter.  They will spend the winter in the ocean before returning again in the spring, often to their same territory, to pair up and breed again.

NEW IN OUR STORE - HOLIDAY CARDS

For those of you who have shown so much appreciation for my pandemic project photographing my backyard birds, especially in the snow, thank you!  You have inspire me to create a line of cards that are now available in my store.  They are beautifully printed 5x7 inch cards that I hope will solve your greeting card needs for the holidays, and let you share these backyard beauties with others.  You can see the full selection and place orders here.

Thanks for tuning in to my adventures.  Fall isn’t over yet, so I hope these images might inspire you to head outside!  It’s a beautiful time of year.

Warmest regards,

Tim Laman

PS.  I will be launching my annual HOLIDAY PRINT SALE  in the next week or so at  TimLamanFineArt.com.  So if you’re starting to think about your holiday shopping, please stay tuned!

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

“The Wild Ride” is one of the my favorite orangutan images I have made in Gunung Palung for several reasons.  It tells the story of a mother orangutan traveling through the primary rainforest, which you can tell because of the massive size of the tree trunk in the left side fo the frame.  It shows how she is using large vines, or lianas, as the bridges through this complex canopy of trees, and finally, it shows how a very young infant has to be able to hold on tight to mom’s skin and fur all by herself because mom needs all her hands and feet for locomotion.  It is hard to explain how much effort was needed to capture an image like this.  It involves following the orangutans through the forest all day with the research team carrying camera gear, and looking for gaps through the foliage.  The best views are from hills I’ve scrambled up in steep terrain to be able to get shots that give you the feeling of being in the canopy with the orangutans (like in this shot) and not just looking up from the ground.  All the sweat is worth it though, when a great moment like this presents itself, and I’m able to capture it to share with all of you.

August Winner and End-of-Summer Sale

Hope all of you in the Northern hemisphere have been having a good summer.  It’s been a different one for me, without the usual fieldwork in Indonesia, but I’ve been keep busy with more local projects as we all adapt to the times we find ourselves in.  Among other things here in the studio, we have been working to expand our offerings in my fine art print collection, so whether you might be interested in purchasing a print or not, I hope you will enjoy browsing the added variety in the galleries of some of my favorite images.  

Congratulations to Valarie S. for winning the Goldie's Bird-of-Paradise square print.  For everyone else who was hoping to win the bird-of-paradise print but didn’t, your timing is good!  I am offering all open-edition prints at 25% off through the weekend in my End-of-Summer Sale. 

Verdin Among the Aloe

What makes a photograph rise beyond pure documentation and become something that can be called art, or at least an artistic image?  It can be a variety of things, and the way they combine together, but the quality of light often has a lot to do with it, along with the composition, how the background works to support the main subject, and other less tangible elements.  For me, this image of a Verdin perched among backlit aloe stems definitely achieves this.  More than anything in this image, it is the atmosphere created by the soft out-of-focus highlights on the aloe stems in the background that really give it a unique feel.  It’s one of my favorites from my time shooting at Sunnylands in the Coachella Valley, California.

Verdin Among the Aloe  is now available for purchase in my Fine Art Store.

Exploring California's Kelp Forest

Over the summer, while out in California visiting family, we made a side trip to Catalina Island to do a few days of diving. I hadn’t been diving since the pandemic began, so it was great to get in the water, and get back to doing some underwater photography. As always, it was a great pleasure to explore a new natural area with my family. My son Russell has an internship with the diving organization Boston Sea Rovers this summer, and was working on his own underwater photography. And it was great to see Jessica, a newer diver, feeling super relaxed even in these chilly waters in a full wetsuit, marveling at the kelp forest and its inhabitants. Unlike on land, where we are stuck on the ground, (and climbing trees takes so much effort), being weightless and swimming among the underwater kelp forest is a truly amazing feeling. If you haven’t done it, I highly recommend it!

Garibaldi Among The Kelp

A garibaldi fish swims among giant kelp as sunbeams dance in the shallows of Catalina Island. I made this shot on my very first dive of our Catalina trip, in only about ten feet of water right near shore, but I think that of all the images I made on the trip, it best captures the feeling of this special place. Garibaldi are the state fish of California, and at this popular dive site, are very used to divers, so it was easy to get close to them with a wide angle lens. Their striking color of course adds a nice focal point to the image. The giant kelp is the dominant plant creating this unique habitat, capturing sunlight to grow incredibly fast. Backlighting those frond catching the sun, with the sun rays behind, just seemed to tell the story of this unique habitat.

Exploring The Kelp Forest

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  My son Russell works on framing a garibaldi among the kelp.

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  Jessica swims through the towering kelp forest that extends over sixty feet from the ocean floor to the surface.

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  My daughter admires a Giant Sea Bass. We had some amazing encounters with these huge fish sheltering among the kelp.

Thanks for tuning in to my adventures. Please feel free to share this newsletter with anyone who you think might enjoy it.
Stay safe everyone, and be sure to get your dose of nature therapy!
Warmest regards,
Tim Laman

PS. My print gallery now features a selection of my favorite UNDERWATER images from my nearly 40 years of diving around the world. Below are a few examples, but please take a moment to check out the full gallery at TimLamanFineArt.com.

The Making of "Loons of Mount Desert Island".

It’s been a crazy year, but one of the perks for me has been working closer to home, and spending more time with family.  Last summer, I took on a project from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology to film the early lives of Common Loons up in Maine, and my children Russell and Jessica, 20 and 16 at the time, were my crew.  We maintained our “covid bubble” while working out of a small cabin on Mount Desert Island.  Loons are spectacular and fascinating birds, and it was an amazing experience to spend so much quality time with them every day as we worked to tell their story.  Russell and I did the filming, and Jessica helped out in the field, made sketches and behavior observations, and then narrated the film.  So it was a true family project.  We are really happy with the result, and I think you’ll enjoy spending ten minutes with us as we explore the loon’s world.  The link is below…. Enjoy!

I’ve also selected a couple of my favorite still frames from the shoot to share here, and you can scroll down further to see a bunch of behind the scenes shots from the trip, and learn a bit more about how we filmed the loons in Maine.

 “Loon Birthday” 
This baby loon emerged from its egg during the night or early morning, and after a few hours in the nest, without ever being fed, walked down the ramp into the water and started swimming after its parents.  By afternoon they were feeding it small fish.  Loons rarely go on land except to breed.  They are strictly water birds, and this chick is no exception.  It may never set foot on land again until it begins nesting as a full adult.  It was amazing to witness and film the first day of this little chicks life, and the film features a sequence of it being fed its first fish.

“Afternoon Loons” 
Beautiful afternoon light sweeps across Echo Lake as the loon chicks ride on mom’s back while dad starts to rise up for a wing flap in the background.  Between feeding bouts, the loon family rests on the water, preens, and naps.  What I like about this frame is the way multiple elements came together to elevate the shot above the ordinary: light, behavior, composition, story.…

LOONS OF MOUNT DESERT ISLAND

View the short film here

The Making of "Loons of Mount Desert Island"

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  Filming from shore, we often tried to work our way ahead of the loons and take up positions so as they moved along the edge of the lake, hunting in the shallows, they would pass by us.  This was a very effective strategy in places where there were multiple access points, but did mean a lot of scrambling with the heavy gear along rough trails around the lake.  We often put our tripods right in the shallow water to get the best angle, as you see me doing here.
  

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   Russell shoots wide shots of the loon family on Echo Lake on a beautiful misty morning.  We used RED cameras as our main cameras for filming for their amazing quality, ability to shoot slow motion, relative compactness for field use.  A great aspect of the RED brand of cameras, is that every frame of video is a high quality raw file that also has the potential to be turned into a still frame, assuming it has suitable sharpness, etc.  All the images of the birds in this newsletter are stills from our RED cameras.
  

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  Photo by Russell Laman.  This is an example of the type of beautiful wide shot Russell was able to capture, while I focused on the closeup behavior shots.  These wide shots really add to the film by putting the birds in context with their environment. 
  

In the summer of 2020, Russell, Jessica and I filmed loons on Mount Desert Island during the peak of the season when chicks were hatching, taking to the water, and in their first few weeks of life.  We filmed at several lakes and ponds around the island where different loon pairs had territories, and were raising chicks that were at slightly different ages.  Here we are at Echo Lake, where two pairs of loons had divided the lake into north and south territories.  The loon families here saw people often since their territories included popular swimming beaches and kayaking areas, so that worked to our advantage because they were quite used to people, and would often pass by quite close to us if we were shooting from the shoreline as we are here.

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Jessica developed her interest and skills in sketching from nature during this trip.  This is a sample page from her journal, and a view of her sketching live in the field.  While of course worthwhile and enjoyable in its own right, her sketching also added a nice element to the film.

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  The less glamorous part of wildlife photography.  People often tell me they would love to be my assistant, but Jessica and Russell know what it’s actually like.  Here they are hauling heavy tripods and backpacks of camera gear to one of the filming locations on Somes Pond.  To create the best quality film, you need to use solid tripods and big heavy lenses.  Getting these to the right spot for filming can be physically demanding, but it’s all part of a days work in the field.
  

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  It was a wonderful experience working as a family team, and spending so much quality time with the loons to work on this project.  We couldn’t have done it though without the help and support from Billy Helprin of the Somes-Meynell Wildlife Sanctuary (www.somesmeynell.org), who monitored all the breeding loons on Mount Desert Island and generously shared his knowledge with us.  Please check them out and give your support to this worthy organization that does so much for loons.  We also would like to thank Acadia National Park for their support and providing access, and of course the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, who sponsored the project and made it possible.  

 We will continue to add new images and galleries to TimLamanFineArt.com.  Our latest additions include a new Hummingbird gallery.  Please check it out!

Tim Laman

Dreaming of Africa

I think I see the light at the end of the tunnel!  Where are you dreaming of traveling to?  I have many places on my list.  It may be a little while yet, but the first place I will head back to internationally will definitely be Borneo, to continue coverage of the orangutans and biodiversity of Gunung Palung National Park.  But many other places are also calling, and the wonders of East Africa are certainly among them.  I have many fond memories of my safaris there, and hope to go back soon.  In the mean time, we have been working on expanding my Limited Edition collection in my fine art gallery, and I’m excited to announce the addition of the image below.

The Vulture Tree

One hot, hazy afternoon in the Serengeti in 2018, we were driving around in our vehicle, but it wasn’t exactly the time of day when I expected to make an outstanding wildlife image.  But then we spotted this lone Ruppel’s vulture, perched in this old dead tree, which was a beautiful piece of sculpture in itself.  The vulture had its wings spread partially, in a posture that likely was helping get some airflow over his body to help it cool off.  I carefully directed our driver to get us into a position where the branches formed the best framing around the vulture.  The hazy afternoon light added the atmosphere and the slightly ocher color palette.  The resulting image ended up being one of my Limited Edition prints.

A Few Other Favorites from Africa

Here are a few other favorites from Africa that are in my Limited Edition Collection:

A herd of wildebeest cross the Mara River during their annual migration.  Serengeti National Park, Tanzania.

A wildebeest makes a wild leap as the herd of thousands surge across the Mara River during their annual migration.  Serengeti National Park, Tanzania.

BaoThe sun rises behind a baobab tree on the African savanna.  Tarangire National Park, Tanzania.

Revealing the Magnificent Bird-of-Paradise Display

One of the most exciting things about what I do is having a chance to reveal aspects of animal behavior that haven’t been seen before.  A couple years ago, my long time bird-of-paradise collaborator Ed Scholes of the Cornell Lab and I made another expedition to the Arfak Mountains in West Papua, with the aim of documenting the Magnificent Bird-of-Paradise display from the female perspective - in other words, from above looking down at the displaying male.  We succeeded, and it’s been some time in coming out, but I’m thrilled to share that our footage now features in a brand new documentary on Netflix “LIFE IN COLOR with David Attenborough”.  Please check it out.  In the images and short video below, I share  the “reveal” of what the female sees - a perspective that we think is a first for natural history filmmaking on this species.

The Magnificent Bird-of-Paradise Display Pose

When in full display posture, the male Magnificent Bird-of-Paradise transforms himself into this unusual shape as he leans back from his small sapling perch.  His yellow cape fans out and is held over his head like a Jesus halo, and his green breast shield is spread into a broad oblong, with a striking blue banded “necktie” pattern down the middle.  Meanwhile, his two tail wires vibrate below him, adding to the spectacle.  Although we and others have photographed this species before from ground level, no-one (to our knowledge) has ever rigged a camera up above the display court looking down to catch the view the way a female sees it.  With our years of experience with birds-of-paradise, we have learned how to choose the right location and deploy hidden cameras without disturbing the birds to capture never-before-seen views like this!  After rigging our cameras in the dark, I filmed from the side, while Ed triggered the overhead camera to catch this moment.

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When viewed from the side, like this shot I made from my blind nearby on the ground, you can see that the male’s breast shield just appears dark instead of bright green.  The bright green color that the female sees from her position is created by the structure of the feathers, and is thus a directional signal the male can focus on her.  As you can see here, the female really comes right in and gives the male a very careful looking over.

The male Magnificent BoP is a colorful bird even when not displaying, with bright yellow wings, maroon back feathers, and bright blue feet among others.  His two central tail feathers are elongated and wire like, and iridescent blue on the top.

Here you can see a female on the display perch right above the male, where she gets the full effect of the bright colors he is presenting.  Meanwhile, a young male, still sporting female type plumage, watches from nearby.  We saw many young males attending the performances of this male.  Research has shown that while there are genetic components to bird-of-paradise displays, there is also a huge learned component, so watching the master perform is key to being able to do it properly yourself one day.

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To learn how I shot the Magnificent Bird-of-Paradise, view my video on YouTube by clicking the picture above.

This is the poster for the new documentary, now out on Netflix.  My BoP sequence is in Episode 1.

Thanks for tuning in to my adventures.  Please feel free to share this newsletter with anyone who you think might enjoy it.  Stay safe everyone, and be sure to get your dose of nature therapy (as well as that covid vaccine)!

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

Where Reef Meets Rainforest

Have you heard of the Raja Ampat Islands?  They are a unique archipelago off the Western tip of the big island of New Guinea.  I’ve been intrigued by this region ever since reading The Malay Archipelago by Alfred Russel Wallace, and exploring this region above and below water has become a personal passion since my first visit in 1990.  It doesn’t hurt that the islands harbor birds-of-paradise, and the coral reefs are now known to be the richest in the world.

As a rain forest biologist and a marine enthusiast, I’m fascinated by places where the rain forest meets the sea.  Raja Ampat is a premier example of this.  In fact, it is the best I have ever seen.  The striking islets of uplifted limestone eroded by sea and weather give Raja Ampat some of the most striking scenery in Indonesia.  Here, as elsewhere, the land and sea are intertwined, and due to very little runoff from the porous limestone islands, corals can grow right up to the shore, even under overhanging forest, as you can see in the featured photo below.  I hope you are inspired to visit Raja Ampat some day, to support the growing green tourism economy there.  I certainly plan to go back as soon as possible!

There is a very unique place in Raja Ampat, where the current sweeps through a narrow channel between the islands of Gam and Waigeo.  It is known as “The Passage”.  It’s a tricky place to photograph, because depending on the tide, the water can be murky, or the current can be so strong it’s almost impossible to stay in one place.  But we got our timing right on this visit, and I was able to snorkel along the steep walls, and under the overhanging trees to look for the spot to capture the image I wanted.  Corals don’t usually grow right up under rainforest trees, because in most places where there is forest, there is too much sediment coming into the sea for healthy coral growth.  But the porous limestone of these islands yields very little sediment, so corals are thriving right under the trees.  I found my spot.  Then I waited for that extra element to add to the image.  This is also the habitat of the famous archer fish that shoots water jets to knock insects from branches into the water.  When two archer fish swam into the frame, I had my shot!

"Reef Meets Rainforest" is now Available for purchase in my Fine Art Store

THE KARST ISLANDS OF RAJA AMPAT

Paradise Islands - Wayag

This uninhabited island group in northern Raja Ampat is a spectacular example of uplifted karst limestone weathered into fantastic shapes.

Wayag Above and Below

Stag horn coral forest below, and rainforest covered mushroom islands above in the Wayag Archipelago.

Damsels in the Flow 

As the tide shifts and a high current rushes over a healthy reef of stag horn coral, thousands of damselfish emerge to feed on plankton sweeping by.

FUTURE PHOTO WORKSHOP IN RAJA AMPAT

Raja Ampat is a photographers dream.  It is also critically important to spread awareness about this region through visual imagery to support its conservation.

Underwater photographer and marine conservationist Zafer Kizilkaya (Pictured above, and see his amazing underwater photography at @Kizilkaya_Zafer) and I are developing a plan for photo workshops in Raja Ampat starting later this year if Covid allows.  If you are interested, drop us an email at office@timlaman.com.  We will keep you posted on developments as we finalize plans.

GALLERY UPDATE

The newest addition to my gallery is my “Underwater World” collection.  It’s a small selection of my favorite images that I feel have captured special moments and places underwater, including all the above images.  Please visit the gallery and have a look.  If you dream of your own past or future underwater adventures, one of my prints might just be the inspiration you need.

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

Warmest regards,

Tim Laman

The Parrots and The Termite Mounds

Dear Friends,

Between spending time outside photographing winter birds here in New England, I’ve been in my studio working through my archives gathering old favorites and discovering unpublished gems for a potential book project on my bird photography from around the world.  This week, I was “virtually” in Australia, reliving a series of expeditions to the remote Cape York Peninsula where some years ago, our team from National Geographic and the Cornell Lab of Ornithology worked to document some of the rarest and most endangered species found in this wilderness.  One of the standouts was the Golden-shouldered Parrot, an endangered species with only about 300 breeding pairs remaining.  I was able to photograph them in their unique habitat dotted with giant termite mounds.  I hope you enjoy the images and behind-the-scenes video below.  It is always my hope that by sharing the stories of endangered species, we can increase awareness and have a positive impact on their future.

THE LANDING - GOLDEN-SHOULDERED PARROT

A male Golden-shouldered Parrot comes in for a landing at the entrance to its nest cavity in the side of a tall termite mound.  This highly specialized bird has a very limited range in this unique forested grassland habitat, where it digs its burrow into the termite mound in the early wet season when rains soften the tower.  The termite tower is actually the cooling system for the termite nest below, and the birds also benefit from the termite’s engineering that keeps the nest chamber at around 28-30 degrees C throughout the day.  To capture this image and the ones below without disturbing the birds, I set up a blind a safe distance away before sunrise, and used a BIG lens.  I’ve included a time-lapse video below so you can see my setup!

THE LANDING is not yet in our Fine Art online gallery, but let us know if anyone is interested in a print and we can make it happen! Let Rachel know at Studio@TimLaman.com.

THE PARROT AND THE TERMITE MOUNDS

A male Golden-shouldered Parrot perches on top of a termite mound.  Here you can really see how the bird got its name!

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  Before dropping down and into the nest cavity to feed the chicks, the male often landed briefly on top of the termite tower to scan his surroundings.

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  This wide shot shows you the scale of these incredible termite towers as the male perches at the nest entrance after the landing.

Before dropping down and into the nest cavity to feed the chicks, the male often landed briefly on top of the termite tower to scan his surroundings.

This wide shot shows you the scale of these incredible termite towers as the male perches at the nest entrance after the landing.

BEHIND-THE-SCENES

To capture the images above, I hiked into the location before sunrise, and set up my equipment and blind (which coincidentally was shaped rather like a termite mound and blended in fairly well).  It was still half dark when I shot this time lapse, but as soon as the sun rose over the trees behind me, the habitat was illuminated with the lovely morning light that you see in the images above.

https://youtu.be/wJXNCb53RG4

Thanks for tuning in to my adventures.  Please feel free to share this newsletter with anyone who you think might enjoy it.  The more people who know about endangered species like the Golden-shouldered Parrot the better!

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

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!

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!

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!

Once In A Blue Moon

Dear Friends,

I’m sure you have all heard the expression “Once in a Blue Moon”, but did you know that a blue moon refers to the second full moon that falls in one calendar month?  This is pretty rare, occurring only about once every 2.5 years, but we had one recently on Oct 30, and I happened to be in the right place to photograph it.  Not that a blue moon looks any different than any other full moon, but still, the novelty of it added an element of interest.  This second full moon of October coincided with our first snowfall here in Massachusetts, and while it was snowing in the evening and the moon was not visible on Oct 30, I went before sunrise the next morning to one of my local haunts, Walden Pond, planning to photograph the sunrise after the fresh snow.  When I got there, still well before sunrise, I saw the full moon setting over the pond and raced to get set up and get a few shots before it disappeared.  The pond had not yet frozen, so the water, being warmer than the air, was creating a beautiful mist over the lake.  Combined with the fresh snow and moon, it was a very atmospheric scene, and I felt very lucky to be there to witness it that morning and capture the image below.  You make your own luck, as they say, and that certainly applies in nature photography!

Blue Moon over Walden

The full moon setting over Walden Pond on the morning after our first snowfall of the season.  Concord, Massachusetts, Oct 31, 2020.

New Book Release:

I’m honored to share that I am a part of a new book that has just been published:

HUMAN NATURE: PLANET EARTH IN OUR TIME

As describe by the publisher, “In Human Nature, 12 of today's most influential nature and conservation photographers address the biggest environmental concerns of our time.  Alongside their reflections, they present curated selections from their photographic careers in a powerful call to awareness and action.”

It is an honor to be part of this crowd:  Joel Sartore, Paul Nicklen, Ami Vitale, Brent Stirton, Frans Lanting, Brian Skerry, Tim Laman, Cristina Mittermeier, J Henry Fair, Richard John Seymour, George Steinmetz, and Steve Winter.

It is now available in several international editions. Learn more at:  https://www.blackwellandruth.com/human-nature

As the year winds down, there are good signs of hope for a better year ahead for all of us and for the planet.  Here’s looking ahead to 2021.  Thanks for joining me on the journey.

Peace,

Tim

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

This image seems an appropriate metaphor for the wild ride we have all had this year.  I named this image “The Wild Ride” (way before the pandemic) because I find it quite amazing the way a baby orangutan, like this one-month old, needs to hold on all by herself while her mother travels high in the trees.  I especially like this image because it represents the primary rainforest of Borneo with giant trees, lianas, and truly wild orangutans living in their ideal habitat.  This is what we work to protect, so that intact populations of orangutans with all their cultural knowledge intact can persist for generations into the distant future.  

This photograph is available as a print along with other favorite orangutan images on sale now for my Giving Tuesday fundraiser (100% of profits will go to the Gunung Palung Orangutan Project, if you didn’t catch that already).

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

Backyard Bird Inspiration

Finding inspiration in nature, and sharing it with others, is part of everything I do.  This crazy Covid year has given me a chance to find some of that inspiration closer to home, and I wanted to share a little with you this week.  Like many of you I’m sure, I have had bird feeders in my back yard for years.  But I haven’t focused much effort on photographing the birds that frequent my yard.  When it snowed back in April though, and then again in late October in a freak early snowstorm here in Massachusetts, the peaceful, beautiful backdrop for these common birds really got me going on photographing them.  So please enjoy the images below. 
 
When you take time to pay attention and learn more about your backyard birds, you’ll find they’re pretty amazing, like I a few things I learned reading more about chickadees that I share below.

Backyard Beauties

Blue Jay on a Snowy Day.  Blue Jay feathers have structural color that reflect blue light, and almost seem to glow in certain even lighting like this.

Cardinal on Snow Covered Branches.  Although I’ve traveled the world seeking out exotic birds, I’m still stunned by the color of the cardinals!

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Black-capped Chickadees.  Active, acrobatic, curious, resilient little songbirds that can somehow survive cold winters despite only weighing 12 grams.  Here are some fun chickadee facts I learned from Cornell’s All About Birds website, and Jennifer Ackerman’s great book “The Bird Way” (highly recommended by the way):
• Chickadees hide seeds to eat later.  Each item is placed in a different spot, and they can remember thousands of hiding places.
• Every autumn, Chickadees allow neurons with old information to die, and grow new ones to store new information (like where they put all those seeds).
• Chickadee calls are complex and language-like, including predator alarms and contact calls, and even including subtleties like the number of “dee-dee-dees” at the end of the call indicating the level of threat.  Other species of birds cue in to and understand their alarm calls as well.
• Seeing a chickadee print on your wall can make you smile and give you a jolt of inspiration (I made that one up, but its true).

Thanks for your following along.  Enjoy your own backyard birds wherever you may be,  and stay safe everyone!
Tim

A Moment of Nature's Beauty: The "Bird-of-Paradise Sunrise"

Dear Friends,

To celebrate the launching of my Limited Editions prints, I’d like to share a behind the scenes video about how I made what is perhaps my most famous image, the Bird-of-Paradise Sunrise. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j_ll0DbSjLE&feature=youtu.be

This video from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, featuring my colleague Ed Scholes and me, tells the story behind this shot.

Featured Photo: Bird-of-Paradise Sunrise

There have been rare moments in a long career in the field, when the image I had pre-visualized in my head came to life, and in fact exceeded my expectations (which are pretty darn high by the way).  This is one of those moments.  At least a week of effort went into planning and executing this shot. Every day I climbed, in the pitch black before dawn, first the tree where the bird had been coming to display. There I rigged a remote controlled camera camouflaged with a leaf wrapper.  After I rigged the camera, I descended and climbed a second, neighboring tree while it was still dark, and perched in a little blind with my laptop, connected by cable across the canopy to the camera.  When the male arrived that morning, it was before sunrise.  But he stayed, calling and displaying, and when the sun popped out and lit up the bird and the mist in the canopy, I saw the scene come to life on my screen and I made this image.  When you are in the field and in the heat of the moment, you often aren’t sure exactly what you have.  But this time I really knew at that moment I had captured a very special image.  I can still remember how my heart raced.  This image has been a double page in National Geographic, and it has won top honors in the Wildlife Photographer of the Year, but I am most proud of the role it has played in helping to elevate Birds-of-Paradise as the ambassadors for conservation of rainforest of the New Guinea region.  

Limited Edition Prints are Now Available

The first group of 14 images in my new Limited Editions series are now up on my website and available to view and order.  Please have a look.

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  The Mara River Leap, Wildebeest herd crossing the Mara River, Serengeti National Park, Tanzania

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  Male Blue Bird of Paradise foraging.

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  Red-crowned Cranes (Grus japonicus) awaking at dawn on the mist covered Setsuri River, Hokkaido, Japan.IUCN Red List: Endangered Species

Wildlife Diaries 15

My large format LIMITED EDITION prints are now available for subscribers only.  Please email studio@timlaman.comto receive a private website link and have a look.  No obligation of course!

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Dear Friends,
 
If you have never been to the rainforest of Southeast Asia, and heard the loud wing-beats of Rhinoceros Hornbills flying over the canopy, I highly recommend a journey after we get through this pandemic.  In the mean time, I thought I’d share my image and story with you below.

Rhinoceros Hornbill

On my very first day in the rain forest of Borneo, back in 1987, the first spectacular rain forest bird that I got a glimpse of was a Rhinoceros Hornbill.  I was on the ground, the bird was high in the canopy, and I could barely see it with my binoculars.  I remember thinking how some day I wanted to find a way to photograph this amazing bird up at its level.  Well, years past, I learned how to climb giant rain forest trees with ropes, and spent scores of days in the canopy.  My first article in National Geographic was about the rain forest canopy in Borneo, and featured a Rhinoceros Hornbill as the opening shot.  So I’ve had a special relationship with this bird for decades.  It is still one of my favorite birds to photograph, a true icon of the lowland forests Borneo and Southeast Asia.  I captured this moment in Thailand in 2018, from yet another blind hidden in the canopy of an adjacent tree overlooking a fig tree absolutely loaded with fruit.  This moment came when the hornbill stuck its head up through some branches, and was looking around for the ripest fig to pluck.

“Soft Launch” of my Limited Edition Prints

We are currently having a “soft launch” of my new line of Limited Edition Prints, including Rhinoceros Hornbill, exclusively for you, my newsletter subscribers.  We are ready to share a private web link with you to the site, featuring the first set of 14 prints I am offering, including several Birds-of-Paradise and other wildlife and landscape images that are highlights of my long career in the field.  Please email studio@timlaman.com and we will send you a private link to so you can have some time to check it out before it becomes publicly available.
 
Here are a few other images that are in the Limited Editions Gallery:

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  Tail of a King

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  Crane Landing

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  The Morning Call

Thanks for your support, and stay safe everyone!
Tim
 
 
PS:  Below is a glimpse of what my new Limited Editions will look like.  They will be available in 48 inch or 60 inch sizes, printed on archival recycled aluminum, and framed in a wood float frame. Tim with "Bird-of-Paradise Sunrise" 48 inch metal print. Edition 1 of 20.

The Mara River Leap

A handful of you were with me that day in August 2018 when I captured the image below.  For those who weren’t, I hope that some day you have a chance to witness this spectacle yourself!  In the mean time, please enjoy this brief account of how the image came together.

The Mara River Leap

There are certain iconic wildlife spectacles around the world that I think probably all wildlife photographers and wildlife enthusiasts would like to see in their lifetimes.  The Serengeti wildebeest migration was certainly one of those for me, and in particular, the crossing of the Mara River was something I wanted to witness for myself.  It was August 2018 when I had the opportunity.  We were hanging back, waiting as the animals massed on the crest of the bank.  Then suddenly they surged.  It was chaos.  They poured down the cliffs and into the river. I knew that the challenge was to extract a moment from this wild scene.  I was shooting as fast as I could, but looking for patterns.  I saw a little ledge part way down the bank that some animals were launching from, becoming briefly separated from the background, and I framed just that section of the scene for a time.  Soon, it was all over.  Thousands of wildebeest had crossed the river in a matter of minutes.  The dust still hung in the air, but I knew that this time, I had been in the right place at the right time, and captured something special.

New Monthly Giveaway
 Starting this week, I have decided to give back by having a monthly drawing for my newsletter subscribers.  Every month we will choose something different to give away.  This month it is an authentic signed 8x10 print of the Red Bird-of-Paradise.  Next month it could be a signed book, poster, or print.  You don't have to do anything, you're automatically entered.  Just letting you know!

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This newsletter represents an official “soft launch” of my new line of Limited Edition Prints, including The Mara River Leap, exclusively for you, my newsletter subscribers.  We will be ready to launch the new Limited Editions Gallery on my website next week, featuring the first set of 16 prints I am offering, including several Birds-of-Paradise and other wildlife and landscape images that are highlights of my long career in the field.  In the mean time, please email us at studio@timlaman.com if you are interested in receiving a private link to the website so you can have a few days to check it out before it becomes publicly available. Click the button below to learn more about my Limited Editions.

About Tim Laman's New Limited Editions

Thanks for your support, and stay safe everyone!
Tim

Wildlife Diaries 13

My passion for photographing birds-of-paradise first grew from a desire to document some amazing birds that few people have had a chance to see in the wild, and share them with the world in the pages of National Geographic.  As I have made 30 expeditions to the region where they occur (Papua Indonesia, PNG, and N. Australia) over the past 15 years, I came to realize that they are the best ambassadors for conserving the rain forests of the New Guinea region, the third largest remaining block of rain forest in the world (after the Amazon and Congo).
 
The local people of Papua realize that protecting their forest for the birds, and hosting visiting birders and other tourists to see them, is a way for them to receive a livelihood from the forest.  So my hope is that my photography and films of these birds can contribute to greater appreciation and thus conservation of Papua’s forest.  But at the moment, international travel to Papua is on hold.  The local guest house owners and birding guides that we work with there have no income. 
 
I know you’d like to help, and so would I.  So if you’d like to help and also own a Tim Laman print to brighten your home or workplace, please visit my online store at www.timlamanfineart.com.  You will find prices and sizes for all budgets and spaces.

Village leader Aren Mandacan (foreground) leads a group of birders to see birds-of-paradise in his forest in the Arfak Mountains.  He has been a pioneer in converting his village economy to be based on protecting forest, and creating revenue from offering guiding and guest houses for visiting birders and photographers.  This kind of grass-roots conservation can have a huge impact in Papua, where local people own the forest.

Details: Labor Day Print Sale to Benefit Papua through Wednesday September 16th

 
Some of you may recall that last spring I ran a print sale to raise funds for the local people in Papua (the land of birds-of-paradise) who lost their income due to covid and the lack of birders and photographers like me visiting.  Thanks to you, we distributed over $3000 in aid directly to over a dozen village families we work with in the form of unemployment compensation and food care packages of rice and other staples.  We work with a small local NGO run by volunteers that takes no overhead at all.  Of course we all hoped the pandemic would be under control by now and international visitors would be traveling to Papua again by now, but this obviously hasn’t happened.  So we would really like to be able to continue to give these folks some more support. 
 
Once again, I’ll donate 50% of Bird-of-Paradise print proceeds to the local people in Papua who look after their forests as a way to have a livelihood from guiding birding trips.  By helping these people, your purchase will also help safeguard the forests of Papua for the birds.  Please order by Wednesday September 16th.  Thanks for your support!
 
I have a wide selection of both full frame images, and my popular square-cropped Bird-of-Paradise series.  Here are just a couple examples.  Please visit the online gallery to see the full selection at www.timlamanfineart.com.

Thanks for your support, and stay safe everyone!
Tim

Tim with "The Mara River Leap" 60 inch metal print. Limited Edition 1 of 10.

Filming Loon Families in Acadia

Dear Friends,

As I reported in my last newsletter, I had a chance to spend time filming in Maine’s Acadia National Park and vicinity for the Cornell Lab of Ornithology this summer.  Besides peregrine falcons, the other primary focus was to document breeding pairs of loons and their chicks.  This was a partnership with the Somes-Meynell Wildlife Sanctuary [www.somesmeynell.org] who not only allowed us to film on their private reserve near the park, but also helped guide us to good locations for filming other pairs of loons on territories all over Mt. Desert Island, so a huge thanks goes out to Billy Helprin of Somes-Meynell.

Our video for the Cornell Lab is currently in production, but in the mean time, I’d like to share a few images.  Loons are an iconic species of the North, and a true indicator of a healthy environment, and it was a pleasure to spend time with them.  A real highlight was being able to see chicks from hatching through several weeks of age, and document their rapid growth and development.  Enjoy!

Featured Photos

Loon chicks leave the nest the day they hatch, and can immediately swim, like this one-day-old with its attentive parents.

Loon parents work hard to feed their chicks, and they grow rapidly, but sometimes the fish come so fast, they can’t get the chicks to take another bite.

When not feeding, it’s either rest on mom’s back, or practice swimming, and flapping those tiny wings!  These chicks are only four days old.

Nice afternoon light catches the loon family as the chicks rest on mom, and dad in the back is about to stretch is wings after a busy afternoon of feeding.

Photo Notes:  Like the falcon images in my last newsletter, these images are all still frames from motion capture on my RED Digital Cinema 8K camera.  Can’t wait to share the moving images with you in our upcoming short film!

Behind the Scenes

Most of our loon filming was done from shore because filming requires using a sturdy tripod.  But at this site, I shot from a kayak, with my tripod in the shallow water – it was the only way to get a view of a loon nest!

Labor Day Print Sale to Benefit Papua - Starts Friday September 4th.

Some of you may recall that last spring I ran a print sale to raise funds for the local people in Papua (the land of birds-of-paradise) who lost their income due to covid and the lack of birders and photographers like me visiting.  Thanks to you, we distributed over $3000 in aid directly to over a dozen village families we work with in the form of unemployment compensation and food care packages of rice and other staples.  Of course, we all hoped the pandemic would be under control and international visitors would be traveling to Papua again by now, but this obviously hasn’t happened.  So we would really like to be able to continue to give these folks some support. 
 
So on Sep. 4 I’m launching another print sale on my Tim Laman Fine Art store to raise funds for Papua.  Once again, I’ll donate 50% of Bird-of-Paradise print proceeds to the local people in Papua who look after their forests as a way to have a livelihood from guiding birding trips.  By helping these people, your purchase will also help safeguard the forests of Papua for the birds.  Thanks for your support!

If you are collecting my “Birds-of-Paradise Square Prints” series, then you will be happy to note we have added new images to the collection, including those above, a new image of the Greater BoP in display and the Vogelkop Superb BoP
 
Thanks for reading, and stay safe everyone!
Tim