Laura L Fellows is co-founder of Exotic Birding LLC with Jim Wittenberger and leads our photo tours. She is also tour coordinator on many of our birding tours. Laura's vision is to portray birds and other animals as they live and behave in their natural environments. She has published her vision of such "Environmental Portraits" in the December 2007 issue of Nature Photography magazine. Before embarking on her current venture with Exotic Birding, Laura had 16 years experience as a commercial photographer and studio manager for an internationally recognized studio in Atlanta. In that capacity she organized, coordinated and executed major photography assignments for numerous national advertising campaigns on location in the Caribbean, South America, Europe, and many parts of North America. She founded and directed a photography workshop program in the Tuscany region of Italy, where she lived for 3 years. Through her efforts the workshop attracted many renowned photographers as guest instructors. She speaks fluent Italian and is now gaining familiarity with Spanish. She has lectured as an invited speaker in the art department at the University of Georgia, has exhibited her photographs in galleries, and has curated 5 photography exhibitions in the USA and Italy. Laura has enjoyed a life-long love and fascination for birds but began birding and bird photography relatively recently. Her first real birding experiences were in south Texas, so some of her first life birds were Aplomado Falcon, Gray Hawk, Buff-bellied Hummingbird, and Altamira Oriole! She has since discovered the joys and challenges of seeing and photographing tropical birds while on tour in Belize, Brazil, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Panama, and Peru. Some of her many photographs can be seen on the gallery pages of our website, which can be accessed by clicking on the sidebar links to the left.
