The Making of Rainbow Brite: Final Color Shoot

This last semester at UMW, I happened to luck out in the friends department. By this, I mean I happened to coerce, er, I mean convince, many of my close friends to help me out with my Daily Shoots.

The most helpful friend of them all was Megan Mc, a fellow DS106er and also a wannabe-roomie that lived across the hall from me.

The Rainbow Brite Photo Shoots all started back in February when I needed to take a photo of something yellow for my dailyshoot.

From there, the color idea snowballed, until I decided dub Megan as “Rainbow Brite: Protector of all Colors.”

Every time there was a color dailyshoot, I would round up Megan and some other willing victim participant, often another DS106er or roomie,  make them wear outlandish outfits and snap a ton of photos.

 

 

 

Eventually, as the semester drew to a close, I managed to photograph Megan wearing almost every color of the rainbow, with the except of indigo and violet.

Before the end of the semester, I wanted to do a final Rainbow Brite Shoot which would include Megas as RB and also other people as “The Color Kids.” I also wanted to get  Jim Groom involved with this project because I thought it would be pretty funny if this legendary persona, who is involved with everything!, was participating in this.

But, then the problem arose of when this shoot would actually take place. The last few weeks of a college semester, as most people know, is CRAZY CRAZY CRAZY CRAZY BUSY!

For this project I would need to coordinate the schedules of 7 people along with my own. It soon came to pass that there was no way this photo session was going to happen before or during finals. The only hope for it would have to be during dead week, the period of time in which seniors get to chill before they graduate.

Even with a tentative date during dead week picked, Thurs May 5th, I was worried that there was no way this would come together. There were so many people who had to be free for at least an hour or two on this day, and this would also be in the midst of people packing up to move out of their apt/ getting ready for graduation/doing whatever teachers do.

Luckily, as I said before, I am blessed with amazing friends who think it’s great fun to wear funny costumes! It also helped that many of these people were roomies/ wannabe roomies who knew how sad I would be if this photoshoot didn’t happen!

So in preparation for this auspicious Thursday, I went shopping at Walmart to buy various props, like a purple and pink badminton set; red, yellow, blue bouncy balls and the rainbow colored balloons. I had also raided my closet at home and had brought along clothing and props in various colors that could possibly be used for the shoot, in case people weren’t able to provide their own. Megan Mc also provided many props/ clothing items used in the shoot.

For the shoot, I even was  lent a really nice camera by the Technology Department. This camera shoots much higher quality photos than my little point-and-shoot camera and was a lot of fun to use!

Once everyone was assembled at the shoot, I suggested a few positions for people to take along the steps of Dupont Hall. Then I  told them to do whatever they felt like and I started snapping away.

I ended up with over 500 photos in about an hour. It was the most interesting shoot I’ve done, simply because of the amount of people in the shoot, the craziness of the costumes, and the continuos action of the participants.

We definitely got some double takes by all the passerby’s, as they saw a sight they will never see again. (Unless someone wants to recreate my photos one day?)

Overall, I’m glad I got to complete the Rainbow Brite Set and also I enjoyed the chance to do something a little out of the ordinary. If I could go back to the day of the shoot and change anything, I would have like to play around with the camera a bit more so I wasn’t having to experiment with it during the shoot. I would also taken more care to frame the shot instead of just taking a bunch of photos quickly and hoping for the best. (Action shots are hard!)

Again, I can’t stress enough how much it meant to me that everyone came out to participate in this photoshoot! Thanks: Gigi, Elena, Karen (also a frequent subject in my dailyshoot photos!), Jess, Colleen and Jim Groom. Props especially to Megan who continually posed for me in my shoots although she often tends to be a little camera shy!

I leave you with my two favorite group shots and the link to all the other Rainbow Brite photos I’ve posted on Flickr. Don’t Forget to check out the story Rainbow Brite: A New Legend Begins.

 

 

 

Written by Cali4beach

3 comments
  1. Wow, just wow, the amount of dedication you poured into this project is awesome!

    Jim Groom as a magical indigo bag lady/purple pie man is wicked awesome, although there’s something about that green shot….very nice.

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