Dan Ratner, Urban Aviary (ANIMAL 2025)

In Urban Aviary, I explore the quiet resilience and beauty of birds adapting to city life. These images are a study in contrast — grace amidst grit, movement within stillness. Shot instinctively and intimately, the work captures fleeting moments that often go unnoticed in our daily rush. The birds become symbols — of freedom, fragility, and survival — set against the backdrop of built environments. A lone pigeon poised like a sentinel, wings caught mid-flight in painterly light, a sudden blur of motion framed by steel and shadow. Rather than documentary, this series leans into abstraction and emotion. I’m less interested in taxonomy and more drawn to presence — how these creatures move through space, how they claim it, and what they reveal about the places we share.

Images have been resized for web display, which may cause some loss of image quality. Note: Original high-resolution images are used for judging.