Wintering Shorebirds of Oakland's Arrowhead Marsh

Wintering shorebirds are plentiful in Arrowhead Marsh, located at Oakland's Martin Luther King Junior Regional Shoreline Park.

I've been developing a technique of photographing subjects and then shaping each image into a blend of photography and painting styles. The four images here were all shot this month, January 2013.

After working with the image in Photoshop Elements to achieve something I like, I then save the edited image and reopen it in a program called Dynamic Auto Painter (DAP). I use a pastel setting, and allow DAP to wipe the "canvas" clean and "paint" the image from scratch, laying down more than 500,000 individual strokes before I stop the program. Then, I save this image separately. Finally, I open both images in Elements and overlay one atop the other. I blend the two images, bringing out more photographic detail in some places over others, as well as highlighting or darkening areas to my artistic taste.

It is a time consuming process, but one I find artistically satisfying. Enjoy the images. Critical comments are welcome.

TO VIEW ANY IMAGE LARGER, JUST CLICK ON IT. 
All Images Below Copyright by Tom Debley, 2013

All Rights Reserved

Great Blue Heron (Ardea herodias) in Flight -- This large wading bird in the heron family Ardeidae is common near the shores of open water and in wetlands over most of North and Central America as well as the Caribbean and the Galápagos Islands.

Short-billed Dowitcher (Limnodromus griseus) -- This short-billed bird is one of three different Dowitchers, which each are medium-sized long-billed wading birds.

Canada Geese Take Flight -- The Canada Goose (Branta canadensis) is a wild goose that is native to arctic and temperate regions of North America.

Willet (Tringa semipalmata) -- The Willet is a large shorebird in the sandpiper family.