Bio-Paul Malinowski
Biography – Paul Malinowski
Born in Chicago, Illinois prior to the advent of the Gregorian calendar, Paul Malinowski’s age is impossible to know without carbon dating. He loved many things about growing up in Chicago, of which two were his favorites: Wrigley Field (home of the baseball Cubs) and the Art Institute (home of his beloved Constable and Hopper paintings among many others).
He received his BA from Beloit (Wisconsin) College and then a master’s degree from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. His education temporarily derailed his interests, especially baseball after seriously injuring his knee while playing on the college baseball team. Besides, he realized his beloved Cubs would never win a World Series, right?[1]
His love of art transitioned into a love of photography when he picked up a Konica Rangefinder camera in college. He self-taught himself photography by purchasing the entire multiple-volume collection of the beautifully written and bound Time Life series on photography. He eventually bought himself an enlarger and darkroom supplies and turned his apartment’s only bathroom into a fully functional darkroom (thus decreasing the functionality of the bathroom for its intended purpose).
And then life hit. Family, a non-art career, and long-term family caregiving combined to set the photography aside for many years. At least creativity was not lost during those years as he pursued acting and writing for theater where he successfully self-produced a full-length play he authored. He also studied Eastern and metaphysical spirituality during that time that exposed him to the art of the “present moment”, thus opening him to begin to “see” things differently, a staple of his current photography.
He finally resumed photography with a vengeance a decade ago. Just before the digital boom he resumed working in a darkroom, this time in a rented darkroom space. That print process has enabled him to recognize how to effectively envision a final “print”, whether on paper or digitally.
Disproving the old adage of you can’t teach an old dog new tricks, Paul successfully transitioned to digital not only in the use of cameras but in the intricacies of the post-processing software of Lightroom, Photoshop, Luminar, Nik, Topaz and others. Eschewing labels of any particular genre or style, Paul stops, observes, and sees a subject on a deeper level and then processes that photo in whatever manner aligns with his vision of that subject. That may render the image a painterly, dreamlike quality or it may produce a gritty reality, whatever his vision calls for.
Paul’s love of photographing birds was spawned by necessity when the new COVID pandemic hit the world and lockdowns and travel restrictions relegated him literally to his backyard. But what a backyard it turned out to be! Opening his eyes to the present moment he began to see a wide variety of birds all engaged in numerous activities.
At first, he didn’t know the difference between a hawk and a finch but after immersing himself in several online courses from the Cornell School of Ornithology as well as books, apps and YouTube videos, and joining ornithology organizations, he can now not only tell the differences between those species but also their genders, ages and subspecies! (No, he can’t)
Eventually that backyard spilled over to some local parks, then a regional park and a state park, all within about a five-mile radius from his home. It is in these “local” locations that the vast majority of his bird “street photography” takes place.
In the last seven years alone, Paul’s photographs have been exhibited in over eighty shows in forty galleries or art centers from Long Island to San Francisco, Chicago to Houston, Oregon to the Carolinas and, of course, his home state of Colorado.
[1] Statement rendered irrelevant in late 2016
