The Deep Dreams Birds

Birds . . . who doesn’t like birds? Statues, I imagine. Also, cars that come out of a car wash. And, of course, Tippi Hedren. 

On the other hand, marry birds with Deep Dream, and you can get some fairly interesting combinations. Fair warning, this is a long post with many photos. Well, “many” is not an exact or even approximate indicator for the number of photos in this post. How about  . . . 30 photos? Sounds good? Fine; here we go.

That’s an African crane whose name now escapes me . . . no, wait . . . I think it’s Alfred. Yes; it even looks like an Alfred. 

Yes, I’m beginning with the “odd birds,” the ones that are not easily grouped with others, like this Frigatebird. This was shot from a cruise ship in the Caribbean. I’m not likely to see one in the cruise to Alaska.

There are a few other sea birds that I played with. Some turned out pretty good . . . 

. . . and some turned out only so-so . . . 

I mean, it’s not the bird’s fault. They were perfectly fine bird photos, but the styles I merged them with were not suited for them. 

The Great White Egret was another bird that was somewhat hit and miss. 

That’s the case of blending a large single object with a style photo of another large single object . . . you don’t get the patterns like you do when one of the photos has more details and varied colors.

Even when I zoom in and just look at the prominent feature like the head and neck . . . 

No, what you need is something with finer details and coloring for use as a style photo. 

Yes, that the sewing machine once more being called into the service of me, the mad combiner of photos. This next one also works . . . 

They look like the same shot, but the second one is zoomed in a little more.

From a shore wading bird, let’s go to the bane of golf courses and green yards . . . that great Canadian shitting machine, the Canada Goose.

That one is merged with a multicolor Hawaiian plant. This next one . . . 

. . . is merged with a brick silo from one of my many Colorado backroads drives. 

Those same back country drives generated the above photo of a hawk in his first few wing beats after launching from a post. 

Probably the bird that I want to show up the best is . . . no, wait. It’s  tie, or at least I can’t choose between a few choices. 

That is a male Tree Swallow stretching its wings out in the early morning. It had a routine it followed which involved stretching the neck and then each wing in turn. They obviously believe in limbering up before investing time and energy into flying. 

Lest I’m accused of being a mysoginist, these next shots of a female Tree Swallow are probably some of my favorites.

It’s difficult picking a favorite . . . here are a few more choices for you to agonize over.

No collections of my photos would be complete without an appearence by what is arguably my favorite bird . . . the Hummingbird.

I tried a lot of variations on this next bird, all with varying degrees of success. 

The next effort is a tad better but still pretty close as far as treatments go.

Of course, I’m not done yet . . . 

That one is pretty unique, per my two cents worth.

Yup . . . Merged with the clown photo. 

Get ready . . . I have a lot of chicken variations . . . 

This variation is a bit special for me because I used  one of my favorite cartoons as the style; Jacovitti and his cartoons about Cocco Bill. It turnes out, C. Bill helped my assimilation into the American gun culture.

As it turned out, I was pre-assimilated by Tex Willer and toys guns in general, but Cocco Bill reinforced my early love for guns. But, back to odd-chicken.

If I ever have a place that suits it, I’ll have chickens and goats . . . And a donkey. Maybe a dog or two . . . And a few cats. 

That’s an odd chicken whose name I still can’t remember. I say that every time, then I make the effort of finding out, then I promptly forget. But not this time . . . I’m not looking it up.

That is, of course, the obligatory San Leon sunrise shot blended in. Still one of the better effects for almost any photo. As, of course, is the sewing machine photo . . . 

I still find other combinations that are decent — like this next one — but those two are fairly consistent in producing nice images.

I don’t remember what I blended in, but I like the effect.

And, that’s it. That wasn’t bad, was it? Thirty photos went by in a flash. Admit it, even some of you impatient readers could use a few more. 

. . . but we’re done for now. Thanks for reading. 

As a reminder, I’m trying to read most blogs I subscribe to, but it’s a pain to comment. Plus, I’m using the reader on the phone as opposed to a PC. So, as with these posts, please excuse if I miss the occasional double letter, mispelled word, or some crazy substitution by the autocorrect function. While on occasion entertaining, it’s mostly a nuisance and an affront to my anal retentiveness.