The Traveling Widower

Tag: hiking

  • 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

  • Shopping Heaven or the End of the Universe

    An older man in a tan jacket stands on the sidewalk beside a golden retriever dog, in front of a Starbucks coffee shop in an urban setting.
    The End of the Universe. AI generated

    July 27th, 2026

    I managed to complete my shopping list in just a few hours over two days. Denver really is the Mecca of outdoor gear shopping. You can buy, or even rent, just about anything you need, for just about any outdoor activity, in the Denver or Boulder area. If you just want one-stop shopping, you’ve got the flagship REI, which I’ve posted about before. It’s sort of like the Walmart or Macys of outdoor gear – multi-levels, with just about everything you could possibly need from rock climbing to kayaking. And with extremely helpful staff. You can even rent most of what they sell. And parking is free. Woo hoo. 

    I’m attracted to that climbing wall, but I’d probably tear out my shoulder joints and a few muscles as well trying to get off the ground.

    If you are looking for high end outdoor clothing and footwear, there are an incredible selection of manufacturers to choose from, all of which have large stores with most everything they sell. Kuhl, Fallraven, Patagonia, Arc’tyrx, Cotopaxi and much more – all carry a much wider selection than REI. And unlike the online Websites for these clothes, you can try the clothing on. I was really impressed with Fallraven – great service and they do in-store alterations for free (which they should given the price of the clothing). 

    For rock and ice climbing,  REI carries a lot of gear, from ropes to anchors, but there are other specialized shops as well. Neptune Mountaineering in Boulder was around back when I was climbing. Eastern Mountain Sports (EMS) used to have a large store in Denver, but they closed a long time ago. Another of my favorites in my climbing days, Forrest Mountainering, sold out long ago.

    And of course you can find all kinds of stores that specialize in skiing gear (alpine, mountaineering and cross-country) – you’d expect that in Denver and Boulder since this is sort of the gateway to all the big ski areas across the state. Back when Jan and I first moved to Denver and used to ski every week during the winter, the Gart Brothers Sports Castle was the place to buy skiing gear, and people waited for the annual ‘Sniagrab’ sale (bargains spelled backwards…clever. Not really). They eventually sold out to the Sports Authority, which faded away.  

    I was not planning to advertise for every shop in the region since I’m not getting paid for advertising in the blog. If you are interested in visiting Denver and are looking for gear, this article in Westword is a good starting point. 

    The fun and very convenient part of searching for gear, is that many of the stores are clustered within walking distance of each other, and also close to brew pubs and restaurants. I mentioned in a previous post, finding Patagonia and Arc’tyrex across the street from each other in the RiNo district of Denver (River North). REI and FallRaven are across from each other, with a few other outfitters within walking distance. Plus, there is an ice cream shop across from FallRaven. I’m always on the lookout for those. The cross-street proximity made me think about the Lewis Black routine, The End of the Universe. Check it out on YouTube. One of the few times I’ve heard a routine of his without a continuous string of f-bombs.

    After reading through this absolutely riveting post, I’m certain you must want to know what I was looking for on this shopping outing. Aside from my obsession with wandering through stores like REI, I’ve been searching for the perfect pair of hiking pants for years. That’s a lot like my search for the perfect camera bag. I must own a half-dozen hiking pants (and camera bags) by now, some of which are convertible (they convert to shorts, not to a sports car), some are heavy cloth, others light weight material. The problem is that every trip I go on has varying conditions – Iceland was cool and damp, but not always raining hard enough to pull on my waterproof shell. My first Alaska trip had the same conditions, maybe a bit cooler. Some of my upcoming trips will be cool and damp, and then there are all the cave trips and rock scrambling where you need more rugged material. I’d like to just have one or two pairs, not a half dozen. 

    Before this trip, I had gone through the online stores for most of the major outdoor outfitters, and had picked four or five to look at on my shopping outing. Tops on the list was one particular model from Fallsraven – I liked the looks of it, with large sections of heavy nylon in appropriate places – water resistant and scuff resistant as well. This turned out to be the winner over Kuhl, Arct’yrx and Patagonia. I wound up buying two, one was a bit heavier, and better suited for my upcoming Patagonia trip, as well as the Iceland trip next year. 

    The perfect hiking pants…at long last

    Now I can pack up all the other pants I have at home, and give them away to a charity clothing collector. And try to stay away from REI and any other outfitter for a while. I need to keep repeating –  “I do not need any more gear”. I’ll let you know how that works. 

    Peace