Upcoming Art Festivals
I finished exhibiting my photos in the outdoor art festivals this summer in Golden and Evergreen. Both of those festivals were successful for me and so much fun to meet new people that appreciate birds and my photography. Admittedly, I did NOT enjoy the hail and torrential rains in evergreen but that’s Colorado weather! Only one more festival remains. I still have lots of new images that I’m excited to share including more variety of sizes and presentation.
Art on the Green (Greenwood Village) - September 12 & 13 - I’m in Booth #33 - https://www.artonthegreencolorado.com/
Two images accepted to Hit Me With Your Best Shot Exhibit in Louisiana
I’m very honored that two of my photographs, Catch of the Day and Up Close and Personal with a Night Heron, have been selected into the the juried Hit Me with Your Best Shot bird photography exhibit at the Gallery by the Lake in Lake Charles Louisiana. The exhibit will run September through November. Last year my image Last Flight Out took Best in Show.
Right - Catch of the Day. This Cormorant caught a nice-sized Brown Trout in the South Platte River. They toss it in the air very quickly and get it head first for ease of swallowing it whole
Right - Up close and Personal with a Night Heron. This juvenile Black-Crowned Night Heron posed very close to me allowing me to focus (pun intended) on its colorful eye and brown feathers that are common to juveniles of this species.
Best in Show Award!
My image Last Flight Out of a male Wood Duck flying over the water of the lake in Sterne Park in Littleton with vivid Fall foliage reflections, has been awarded Best in Show of the Hit Me With Your Best Shot Photography Exhibit at the Gallery by the Lake in Lake Charles, Louisiana. This annual competition is a bird photography-only exhibit with incredible quality entries. If you’d like to see the exhibit online, the link is below. I am very honored and humbled to receive this award! https://gallerybythelake.org/2024-gallery
NANPA Top 250 Showcase Winners!
My images of Last Flight Out (see above) and It Was a Dark and Stormy Night (see below) have just been named to the North American Nature Photographers
Association (NANPA) Top 250 Showcase for 2025. NANPA is recognized for its membership of excellent nature photographers across North America. Every year they select the top 250 nature photographs in various categories. My two images were selected out of 3,200 entries (only 250 are selected) and I am incredibly honored to once again be in the Top 250 for the second year in a row with two photographs. To view all Top 250, click on the link here.
Flora x.0 and Others
This month blog article focuses on the return of Flora the Hummingbird and her babies to my yard all summer. Read more here.
Right - I always enjoy watching the Snowy Egrets catch whatever they can and sometimes can’t put into their mouths!
Right - This Western Grebe in Chatfield has almost devilishly red eyes
Right - This is an unusual late season nest-building activity by a pair of Ospreys that are likely getting it ready for next year
Right - Not sure if this is my old buddy Nat the Night Heron returning to the South Platte River but regardless this sure is a beauty. It stayed so stationary I was able to use a very slow shutter speed to capture the water with its silky smooth texture
New Images
Right - This is a somewhat rare Eastern Phoebe that I found with a meal in its bill at Chatfield State Park
Right - And here it is flying across the river, I assume to get to the other side, ha-ha
Right - Another Chatfield sight was this Pelican sitting on a log in the water keeping one eye open while it otherwise appeared to sleep.
I continually update this website with new images of birds. This is where I will “introduce” them so that you can have just one place to look until I assign them to one of the galleries. So even if you’ve viewed my entire website many times, you will only need to come back to this page to see what’s new. As always, click any image to enlarge.
Right - A beautiful Say’s Phoebe perches in front of the lake at Chatfield State Park
Right - This Snowy Egret showing me how beautiful it is. As if I didn’t already know!
Right - This Great Blue Heron flew by me on the way to its nest
Below - An Osprey pair has been very busy lately. They had a nest but but I don’t believe they were successful this year in hatching a brood.
Below - Yeah, I know these aren’t birds but I was taking photos of birds when I saw them. On the left is a pair of Green Darners mating while on the right is a Two-tailed Swallowtail butterfly sharing a Milkweed plant in my yard with a Western Honey Bee.
What is Bird Street Photography?
I have been fascinated – okay, obsessed – with photographing birds for a few years now. They are magnificent creatures who are largely unpredictable and a challenge to photograph. As opposed to static landscape and architectural photography (both of which I love to do), bird photography more closely resembles the genre of “street photography” but with trees, bushes, water, and the sky as their very busy streets. Like traditional “street photography”, you may be familiar with the location you go to, but you can never predict what scenes will unfold.
I am based in Littleton, Colorado and almost all of the images on this website are of “locals”, meaning not only did I photograph most of the birds here in Colorado, but the vast majority were photographed in the Littleton area. Some are year-round residents; others are migrants “fleeing” through the state.
Although I photograph a variety of species, I care much less about that than I do about catching a variety of avian activities such as fishing, eating, flying, courting, etc. All photos are completely natural, meaning I do not “stage” any setups by using “baiting” techniques, sound calls or perches. And although I edit my images in post-processing, I do not use Photoshop compositing such as changing out a sky or background unless I specifically indicate so.
Many of my images display a sense of whimsy or awe or anthropomorphic bird behavior that we recognize in our own behavior. I strive to move the viewer to feel an emotion, whether that be a smile or an “aww” or whatever pops into your heart.
This website is laid out in about a dozen galleries. Rather than have each gallery represent a bird species I have organized them by activities that birds typically do such as eating, fishing, flying, fighting, etc. To me this is a much more interesting way to present these images although I do try to identify species whenever known. I also try to use “Alt Text” on images to assist any visually impaired viewers of the site.
My photographs across the genres and subjects have been selected in over 80 juried competition art shows from San Francisco to New York, Chicago to Houston, Oregon to the Carolinas and, of course, my home state of Colorado. If you are looking for my other website that features other subjects such as Americana, architecture, and landscapes, please go to www.paulmalinowskiphotography.com.
I truly hope you enjoy my website. Please visit frequently as I will be continually updating the galleries with new photos of random “street photography” of birds.
Paul Malinowski
Colorado
Galleries
My Presentation of Wildlife Storytelling Through the Lens of a Bird Photographer now on YouTube
My free presentation of Wildlife Storytelling Through the Lens of a Bird Photographer that I presented to the Lone Tree Photo Club was recorded at can now be found on YouTube. The link is https://youtu.be/cQsVSf3hz0E My part starts at about the 12:20 mark and ends at about he 1:330:00 mark. It was really well-received and I think you’ll enjoy it.