The Traveling Widower

Category: Photography techniques

  • Street Art and Color Wheels

    Traffic signal with a red light and a yellow pedestrian crossing sign under a clear blue sky

    August 10th, 2026

    !!!!Photography Geek warning!!!

    With all the fancy camera equipment I buy, and thousands of images I’ve collected from my recent world wide adventure travels, I still consider myself to be little better than a novice when it comes to photography. Yeah, I do have some technical knowledge gained through learning how to process film and make prints in a darkroom, and I have been to some workshops and a couple of classes, but I never seem to make the jump to the next level where my work places in competition. It was frustrating to spend 12 days in a place like Iceland, and not have anything worth submitting for nature or landscape competition. But, competition is not the only reason I lug all this gear around….I just enjoy photography as a hobby, and the pictures I take on my trips are a feature of my blog, or wind up printed on acrylics to decorate the rapidly filling wallspace in my home. I may have to look for a new place to live with more wall space.  As I’ve said before, I started blogging to tell stories around my photographs, it’s sort of the reverse now. 

    At any rate, I’m rambling once again. I’m still trying to improve my skills in composition, planning, and post-processing by enrolling in classes and workshops – old dogs can learn new tricks. Bark!  I recently attended a workshop focused on color – “A Photographers Guide to Color Theory”. I’ve had some exposure to color theory from my color darkroom days – you had to play around with the color filters on the enlarger, and wind up wasting a lot of expensive paper and chemicals if you did not know the basics. Now of course, you can use Adobe products to do all of that on your computer. I was hoping this course would be a good refresher, and from the description, maybe explain how you can use the myriad of camera settings to improve on the RAW images rather than having to fix things with Adobe. I also hoped to learn about one aspect I knew nothing about – color temperature, or the Kelvin rating. When I attended the astrophotography workshop in Moab Utah this year, someone asked what Kelvin I was shooting at. Huh? I had no clue, or even how to set that. This would be a good place to learn about that.

    Well, the class did exceed my expectations. The instructor covered all the technical aspects of color – why we see colors, how the primary colors are mixed to generate the color wheel, shades/tints/tones, and yes….color temperature. I now know how to change the Kelvin settings on my camera..and why I would want to do that. Beyond the technical aspects of color theory and photography, the instructor spent more time on the relationships of color, color harmony, and how that impacts photo composition, as well as the impact that mix of colors might have on the viewer (or competition judges). Different mixes can tell a different story, and have unique emotional impacts…how a viewer feels when they see these colors. Warm shades versus cool shades can change a person’s mood. Think about all the color cards you go through when you are buying paint for your house. The color mix in an image can tell a story, and set a mood.

    A color wheel featuring segments of red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, with labels for each color.

    We put our new found knowledge to practice once the instructor finished her presentation, by taking a tour of the surrounding neighborhood, looking for murals or interesting color combinations on the older buildings.  It was slim picking at first, hence my photo of the traffic signal (which actually illustrates how three analogous hues, yellow, red and blue make for a nice composition), but we found quite a few murals as we wandered through the alleys. This was basically street photography, something I’ve been interested in learning since I pretty much suck at composition beyond wildlife and landscape photography. Jan was great at that – if she saw something interesting, she would just say – “Sam…take a picture of that”.

    So I’m going to expand my photography horizons and take a workshop in October. Jan would have been pleased although I’m pretty sure she would not be thrilled with all the nature stuff I have hanging on the walls now.

    So, here are a few of the images I captured on our walk about, with a comment or two on color composition.

    Colorful geometric pattern created by triangular shapes on a textured wall against a clear blue sky.

    I walk by this building display every time I go to the Viewpoint center, but never stop to take a closer look. It’s really a well designed  creation of repeating geometric shapes, each an analogous mix of hues (all related). It’s a bit painful to look at , sort of like one of those Escher posters. I like it a lot.

    Close-up of a vibrant eye mural painted on a brick wall, featuring intricate details and purple hues.

    This is a close-up of a full wall mural of a women’s face – I like the texture of the bricks, with the different (triadic) mix of soft hues. 

    Colorful mural of a person with glasses on a building, featuring abstract geometric shapes and vibrant colors.

    The instructor did not like the color mix on this – sort of a haphazard mix, which does not tell a story. I liked the composition.

    A mural featuring a stylized skull with diamond-shaped eyes and a mustache, integrated with a classic barber pole design in red, white, and blue, set against a black background.

    I’m not sure I would want to get my hair cut at this barber shop. This reminded me of the skull displays I’ve seen for Dia de los Muertos. Nice color mix though

    A vibrant mural featuring an abstract composition of eyes and facial features, painted in shades of blue and purple, with sunlight shining above.

    I liked this one – a bit creepy, but the monochromatic blend of blues really works to create the creepiness. 

    Close-up of a painted eye on a brick wall, showcasing intricate details and vibrant colors.
    A brown freight train car with colorful graffiti artwork on the side, surrounded by a chain-link fence and greenery in the background.

    There were too many murals to include in this post, so I’ll stop with these two. Another eye closeup, also monochromatic, and then a train passed by, with most of the cars covered in graffiti. I’m not quite sure where you cross the line from graffiti to street art. This one reminded me of the concrete snow sheds in the Donner Pass tunnels.

    Someone in the group mentioned that there is a guide to all the murals in the Sacramento area, www.wideopenwalls.com, and one of the murals had the QR code for the artists page on that Website. The guide includes a detailed map, so I intend to dedicate a morning in the near future, to do some exploring – I have about 2 weeks to kill before I leave for Kodiak Island, so I might as well do something useful since I’ve been completely packed for over a week. Yeah, I’m that kind of person.  

    And now a segue to a completely unrelated topic. Well, maybe a little bit related given the last paragraph. I mentioned somewhere above about how much I enjoy photography as a hobby, regardless of whether I do well in competition. I’ve found that everything involved with even a one day photo shoot – the planning, preparing the gear, and all the post processing, can lift me from the usual doldrums and depression I get when I’m between trips, sitting around by myself with nothing much to do. You can only pack so many times for a trip that’s a month or two out on the horizon. Add in the time spent on writing a blog post for the activity, prepping for a club competition, or looking for some other related activity and I can keep myself quite busy for some of that down time. The past few days have been a good example – the color workshop was an incentive to look for other street photography classes, and has kept me busy doing post processing on images I captured. I’ve also been planning on one last Milky Way shoot which required checking out a few sites up in the Sierra, and then remembering all the camera settings I need for astrophotography (another post coming soon!). I guess this is a form of escapism, but in a good way. I think I’m turning into Max – most everything I do is digital based. Maybe I’ll watch Tron again tonight. But I’m not letting Max’s dog into the house. I’ll never get him out of the pool.

    A golden retriever swimming in a well-lit pool, holding a red toy in its mouth, surrounded by lush greenery and modern landscaping.

    Peace

  • Artificial Intelligence and Photography

    A photography booth at a market featuring a smiling man and a humanoid robot. The man holds a camera while discussing framed photographs displayed on the table. The booth is labeled 'Max's Creative Photography,' with various prints and water bottles visible.

    July 23rd, 2026

    Warning – this is another of those geeky posts. Sorry I am an admitted member of the Society of Self-Declared, Unabashed Geeks. Look at the pictures and skip the rest if you are not interested in Artificial Intelligence.

    As you may have noticed if you have been following this blog, I’ve been making good use of Google’s AI product, Gemini, to create peculiar images which sort of go along with the general theme of each post. What has evolved into my avatar, Max, and his dog Aperture, have become my digital companions on most of my trips. Yeah, I know – some of them are really weird. I can’t help it. This is the kind of stuff that bounces around in my head. But,  I’ve been having fun with the AI tool, and have not really considered how AI could be used for anything else other than enhancing my blog stories by including Max and Aperture. Until recently.

    I belong to a local photographic art center, Viewpoint, which offers workshops taught by local, experienced (as in award winning) photographers. One such workshop, titled “Using AI as your art director” piqued my interest, so I signed up for it. Good move on my part – I have occasionally used Gemini for simple questions about photo editing, basically asking about features of Adobe Lightroom, but these were just using standard Google search. What the workshop focused on was true AI type of processing – asking the AI to act as a competition judge, critiquing the photograph and then providing very specific changes to improve the image. Each workshop attendee submitted one of our photographs for review, asking the following:

    Act as an award-winning photography art director and analyze this image and suggest five specific ways to increase its visual impact. Consider composition, storytelling, lighting, color, cropping and emotional engagement. Explain why each suggestion would strengthen the photograph while preserving its natural look

    This is an extremely complex task – aside from scanning in detail, a large, very detailed and dense  image, AI has to find and apply judging rules for the specific competition, and compare those to various components of the image. And then determine how to fix the flaws using whatever tool the requestor uses. I cannot even imagine what it would take to write an application specific to that task.

    What the AI (ChatGPT) came back with was amazing – and all written as if a photography competition judge was performing the critique. Within a minute, I had a nine page critique which included:

    • A detailed rating of what components worked well in the photo
    • Areas that could cost points by the judge 
    • Overall view of the composition and technical quality
    • Specific areas which could be improved
    • Detailed, Adobe Lightroom specific changes

    I then fed the AI a few other images, and each time, it compared the new image with the previous in terms of overall rating. In some cases, it would say the new image was an improvement over the previous, and give the reasons why. At one point, it provided a ranked rating of each of the images I had submitted. 

    Once I got home, I went ahead and applied the recommended changes to some of my photographs, and I was pleased with the results. Here are a few of the before/after photos.

    A close-up of a mottled gray owl perched on a moss-covered rock, with a blurred natural background.
    A close-up of a mottled owl perched on a moss-covered rock, surrounded by blurred natural background.
    A group of dolphins swimming in icy waters near a large iceberg in a snowy landscape.
    A group of penguins swimming in icy waters near large, majestic icebergs in Antarctica.
    A small house with a red roof situated on a lush green hillside, surrounded by flowing streams, near a body of water.
    A small house with a red roof sits on a lush green hillside, surrounded by gentle slopes and small streams flowing down the landscape.
    An Adelie penguin standing on a rocky shoreline with a blurred icy background.
    An Adelie penguin standing on rocky terrain with its wings spread, against a blurred background of icy blue tones and water.

    One important point to keep in mind before getting too excited (I never do) – AI did not generate or alter any of these photos. All it is doing is providing recommended edits, and both Gemini and ChatGPT provide disclaimers, as did the instructor in the workshop. Much like a real competition judge, the AI can make mistakes so the photographer still needs to rely on their own judgement and sense of creativity when applying edits. AI is not creative on its own – it relies entirely on the photographer for that. It can only help the user to improve upon a photograph.

    Another point to consider is that the AI is not a real judge, so even if you follow the recommendations, it’s up to a human, expert photographer to critique and rate a photograph. Plus, you are competing with other experienced photographers. So AI may tell you that an image is a potential award winner, but take that with a grain of salt. And to prove that point, none of the above photos placed in competition. Very, very tough competition and small flaws can make a big difference. It’s a learning experience. Still, I intend to continue using AI as part of my editing process.

    The workshop covered a few other areas where AI can assist photographic endeavors, which I found useful. One of those was trip planning – you can ask for a recommended strategy for a particular area. For example, I asked for a strategy for my upcoming trip to Kodiak Island, to photograph those enormous (and hopefully not interested in humans) grizzly bears. ChatGPT came back with an overall strategy, starting with:

    The biggest mistake photographers make in Alaska is photographing bears instead of photographing bear behavior. Judges have seen thousands of standing bears. What stands out are images that tell a story.

    Go into each outing looking for one of these:

    –Mother and cub interactions
    -Bears catching salmon
    -Bears sparring
    -Bears emerging from water
    -Bears feeding with dramatic backlighting
    -Bears in beautiful landscapes
    -Environmental images showing the scale of Kodiak

    Along with specifics on lenses and camera settings specific to my Sony A7R, as well as lighting and behavior to look for, and the best overall composition for competition. All good advice. Planning ahead is alway a good idea, and any recommendations are welcome.

    Ugh, this post is getting way too long and detailed and probably really boring to anyone other than semi-serious photographers. Time to wrap this up with a couple of general thoughts on AI.

    For photography, I think it is OK to use these tools to augment images, if all you are planning to do is show the image to friends or mount a photo on the wall. As long as it is not for competition or submitting for publication in a magazine, anything goes. 

    I know some people are concerned about privacy – how much information Gemini or ChatGPT store about you. Well, the easiest thing to do is just ask. Unlike some politicians, AI does not lie every time it opens its digital mouth. I did query both products and the lengthy responses to my specific questions were that it can only use the information we give it. They both know my interests in wildlife and nature photography, the trips I go on from my blog posts, and the type of equipment I have – all information that I have either included in my requests, or is readily and publicly available. No personal information (address, birthday, age) or financial data. 

    But, AI still scares the hooey out of me sometimes. OpenAI recently released a notice to the media regarding one of the “Skynet” type of problems. They were testing a new model in a sandbox environment, which was supposed to be boxed off from the internet. Well, the model figured out how to escape from the box, and did what it was being tested for – it attacked and infected a competitor. Oops. Maybe the Terminator scenario is not pure fantasy. Where’s Arnold (the good one, not the first movie) when you need him. 

    Peace