GAME ON: Rainbow Brite hits the big time

I’ve been meaning to post this for a while, but for some reason had gotten totally distracted and forgotten about it until now.

Every so often I check to see how people have been linked to my photos. One day I found that some of my Rainbow Brite photos had been linked to this online game. I was intrigued and decided to check it out. Continue reading

365 Days Worth of Photos

Last Monday I finished my yearlong Dailyshoot challenge! For my final dailyshoot I took Sibling1 along and headed out west. I took photos in two different locations (abandoned house & empty field) before deciding how I want my final shoot to end. The result:

Victory!

Let me tell you, it was really hard taking a (good) photo everyday! Some days, especially when I was traveling, I would take so many good photos it was hard to decide which photo to choose as my dailyshoot. Other days, I had to scramble around just to find something to photograph.

It also was a lot easier to take photos when Dailyshoot.com was running. Once it became defunct in the beginning of October 2011, it took a lot more motivation to go out there and photograph something each day. It also was a lot harder to keep track of which dailyshoot assignment number I was on since I generally didn’t post the photos the day I took them. This lead to double posting assignments for one day and also not having my dailyshoot assignment #’s in the correct sequence.

Still, I had an absolute blast with the project!

Out of all the photos I posted for my dailyshoots, about 2/3 of them are pictures of inanimate objects, landscapes, & plants. The remaining 1/3 is mostly pictures of friends/family, animals and random strangers.

My thanks go out to all my lovely amigos who helped me with my project including: Megan Mc, Elena, Laura, Gina, Karen, Colleen, Marieke, KKY, Rose,  Kayla, Army, Aitak, James, Dan G, Quacclynn, Raven, Sabine, Mario Lopez, Tito, Steph, Ashley, Natalie, Aliyah, Jess C, Z. Efron, Clare, Isaac, Charlotte, Meghan, Jackson & Nikki, George, & last but not least, Jim Groom. (If I forgot anyone, let me know!)

Also, I am extremely indebted to DS106 as whole because it inspired me to start this project and to continue on with it for an entire year.

I used over 10 cameras to take these photos. During the course of the year I managed to kill two cameras  (my 1st camera died of old age (4 years old) :/ and its replacement later fell victim to accidental drowning >.< )

My favorite photos from the year are as follows:

Favorite Photo Shoot: The final Rainbow Brite Shoot  where I managed to get 7 friends plus Jim Groom to dress up in  crazy outfits and take silly pictures.

Favorite Model(s): All my models were truly fabulous! But definitely big kudos to Megan Mc, Elena, & Karen because they were the ones who volunteered to model in a lot of my photos.

Megan, Elena, Karen

 Favorite Photo of a person: I like how this photo is really focused on the dandelion and yet, it’s also all about the person in the background (Elena).

 

Favorite inanimate object photo: Love the image of the flame leaping into the balloon.

 

Favorite altered photo:  I like the extreme color contrast here.

Favorite Animal Photo: Bentley jumping into the lake. Great frozen motion shot.

 

Favorite photo of me: I ended up using a few photos of me for my dailyshoots and this by far is my favorite because it captured such a unique experience.

I was going to start year 2 of 365 photo a day project, but decided that with all the effort I am putting into “366 Creativity Journal project” I don’t really have time to do both properly. So year 2 of photos is going to have to wait a little while, but I definitely plan on coming back to it one day.

2011 recap & 2012 resolutions

2011 was a crazy year.

I graduated from college and had many crazy adventures in the US with international friends!

In 2011 I visited 23 states

In my entire life I have been to 32 out 50 states in the US

 

Most importantly, I took DS106 in my final school semester. DS106 has changed my life. I say this not because all of the internet skills I learned through this class, but because of my 365 photo a day project I started. I’ve been working on this project since Jan 31,2011 and only have a month left to go.

Out of all my resolutions for 2011, taking a photo everyday has been the only one I have kept.  The key here was determination and so far I’ve done an amazing job of sticking with it.

Now it’s 2012. What’s the plan for the new year you might ask? I have a lot of things up in the air right now, but two things are certain:

1) I want to travel as many new places/countries as possible this year

2) I am starting a new year long project based on the book “365: A Daily Creativity journal” by Noah Scalin.** Every day for a year I will be creating something new based on the daily prompts from the book. I’ve already kickstarted the year with by making this:

Two of my friends are supposed to be doing this project alongside with me as well (Katherine and Marieke) so I am excited that I am not going into this year long project alone.

As for other “resolutions” I ideally want to try blogging at least once a week. Once DS106 was over I’ve definitely slacked on the blogging and I’ve come to realize that I miss it. Also, I think I might want to keep up with a photo a day for a year. Now of course I am going to be taking a photo everyday of my 366 (because of leap year) creativity journal project, but it would be nice to continue taking photos of things outside of this.

I don’t know what’s going to happen in 2012, but I do know it’s going to be an creatively interesting year!

**SIDE NOTE: Noah Scalin’s 365 day project involved creating a skull a day. He did an amazing job on this project and if the things that I can create this year are a quarter as good as his, then I will be happy!

This is one of my favorites from his project :

Oh where, oh where do my flickr photos end up?

Today I decided to look at my Flickr stats and  see where people have used my flickr photos on the internet.  All my photos are Creative Commons which means that they are available for download/use  with the condition the user credits me as the photographer.

The search results were surprising at times. My pictures have appeared personal blogs, professional websites, in articles and on tumblr. Some of the websites are in foreign languages, like German or Spanish, and the rest in English.

For most of my photos, I think it’s pretty cool that people liked enough them to use it across the web, especially since this increases my exposure as a photographer. But for some of my other photos….it’s just odd. I’ll explain more about that in a bit.

Below is a collection of some my photos that I’ve found on various websites through this search.  A couple of my photos are popular and can be viewed on various websites, especially the Superhero Valentines. The Superhero Valentines are super popular. Several articles discussing online dating have used them, like the Spanish Website  Delgada y Guapa and The Dating Weblog.

Buscar pareja en el internet by Delgada y Guapa

This next photo comes from an interesting article by Damon Young on the website “The Good Men Project“. In this article it is posited that women and men CANNOT be simply “friends” (especially if they are roughly the same age) because invariably one person or both of them will feel an attraction to the other, thereby voiding the whole “platonic love thing.” I enjoyed reading this article as it discussed various good points.

Another popular photo is my “Irreconcilable Differences” photo which is one I have also seen on a few websites, like Strom.Idealo (website in german) and Frikelia (website in Spanish)

German Website

Spanish Website -->

Now in terms of websites that use my photos, I get a lot of photo views from Squidoo. Squidoo apparently automatically generates photos from Flickr for various articles. As a result of this, I’ve gotten a lot of hits on the photo of my friend’s tattoos under the category “Finding Cute Tattoos, on the photo of my wombat stuffed animal under the category “Pet Wombat”, and lately, a photo of mine with a quote from Alice in Wonderland  under the category “Life Quotes for Facebook.”

 

However, out of all my photo usage, I really like the following two. The first is a collection on Tumblr devoted to showing how beautiful curly hair can be. I like it because there are so many great photos on here, that it’s an honor to have my photo be among them.  My friend who is featured in the photograph, Gigi, thought it was pretty sweet too 🙂

T

Curly Hair -- my photo 2nd from right

The next comes from a blog post by Ashlee Sadler discussing Introverts and Extroverts. The photo seems to fit surprisingly well with the topic of discussion.

Ashlee Sadler's blog

 

Now I come to the part where I discuss the photos I think are oddly placed. Let’s start with this photo:

 

This photo of mine accompanies an article about how online marketers should use lists to promote their websites. Why do I have a problem with this?

I dislike this photo immensely. I only posted it on Flickr because of the few photos I took for the daily shoot for the day, it was my best which isn’t saying much. So the fact someone actually used it somewhere else on the internet is embarrassing. Not to mention: it’s a personal list. A random, hastily scrawled list that if someone actually took the time the read, they would be like “what the hell is she writing about?!” So taken out of context and used for this web article about online marketing lists, it is super odd to me and way too personal. >.< Obviously  I shouldn’t post personal things under Creative Commons unless I am okay with them being used, but honestly, this photo? Never in a million years would I have thought that someone would be desperate enough to use such a crappy photo. Lesson learned for the future.  :/

The next photo also seems out of place to me.   It’s part of a collection centered on  crutches, which works because my photo has crutches in it, but at the same time, it’s weird because it is surrounded by all these photos of an intense looking emo girl. It is just a such a disconcerting jump going from a very goofy photo to a set of serious ones. Unfortunately, I can’t find the link for this site now, but I shall post it once I find it again!

 

My photo: the only bright one in the bunch, or top left

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So what has all of this taught me? People will use your photos in somewhat surprising places. Expect this if you are are posting on the Commons. Also, appreciate when people link back to you so you know exactly where your photos end up. 🙂

Coincidence

Today as I was driving to pick up some friends so that we could go to Border’s Going Out of Business sale, I kept thinking about the underwater photos I blogged about yesterday.

Then I thought: “When I get a book published one day, I wanna use a photo by Elena Kalis on the front cover.”

Lo and behold as we are scavenging through the books, I came across this:

Apparently other people have been thinking along the same lines as me because the cover photo for the book “Imaginary Girls” is by Kalis.

Funny coincidence, right? And good thing I have another photo by Kalis in mind 🙂

I think I take cool photos and then I see this:

Today I was snooping around on Pinterest (which has a lot of great photos) and discovered this photo:

copyright Elena Kalis

I love how ethereal the water makes her look. It’s such a striking photo too, with a contrast between the colors of her outfit, the bird and the water. I decided to look up the website of the photographer, Elena Kalis, to see what other photos she has.

I was blown away by the gorgeousness of her photos. She has a remarkable eye for photography, in addition to having great models and gorgeous outfits. It also helps she’s located in the Bahamas! (Envious!)

Here are my four favorite photos from her site, although this was a difficult decision as ALL of her photos are so beautiful!

If things go wrong, don’t go with them.

Fair Ladies II

Dreamland

Alice in Waterland

Now that I’ve seen Kalis’ photos, I am really lusting after an underwater camera. I’ve played around with a good underwater camera once before, but I would love to actually OWN one so that I could do photoshoots like Kalis! Although instead of shooting in the Bahamas, I would definitely re-locate to Australia to take photos! 🙂

 

One Day... ** sigh**

Something beautiful

Yesterday’s Daily Shoot was: Find something beautiful and make a photo. Don’t over think it.

What I find interesting is the response to this dailyshoot was. Okay, so there is a lot of flower/ plant photos. And there’s a fair few photos of people and animals.

How cute is this?

But people have also posted photos of sprinkles, shadows on a tissue box, paperback books,and a bank deposit receipt.

 

Wish this was mine, haha! 😀

I have to say, I like these photos more than other totally gorgeous photos.

Why? Because they actually stick out in my mind. These images resonate more because they aren’t something that on first glance I would really consider beautiful. But once you shift your perspective, then you can see the beauty in simple things like sprinkles or  shadows on a tissue box.

As for my daily shoot, it was an idea born from several hours on tumblr combined with a loooooong car drive home and a dead camera battery. I borrowed my Mom’s really nice Nikon (so want to steal it!)  and took this photo fairly quickly.

love.

Why do I find this beautiful?

Well, even though many of my good friends are thousands of miles away, across seas and on different continents, they still make an effort to keep in touch with me.  They send me cute letters, postcards, emails and even packages filled with things they saw and bought for me just because they knew I would like it. This photo goes out to all my beautiful friends who remind me constantly how lucky I am to have them in my life. <3

Can't wait for instantaneous travel!! Flying gets OLD after a while!

 

Rainbow Brite: A New Legend Begins

Once Upon a time there lived an ordinary girl named Megan. Oh, she was unique enough in her own ways, she possessed high levels of strength and was a giant Star Wars nerd among other things, but she would never possess any supernatural abilities.

Or so she thought, until one day an unusual being appeared to her as she was walking to her digital storytelling class:

Orin, the wise one.

 

 

The strange creature was a Sprite named Orin. He came from the magical planet Spectra, a planet of pure diamond that all the light in the universe has to pass through before it can reach Earth.

Unfortunately, as Orin explained to Megan over a cup of coffee at Hyperion Cafe, Spectra had been taken over by “The Dark Princess.”

 

 

 

 

pure evil

 

 

The Dark Princess was determined to keep all the light and color in the universe to herself.  If she was to succeed, all the life in the universe would die!

A girl named Rainbow Brite, a girl in charge of creating all the colors for Earth, attempted to stop The Dark Princess. But The Dark Princess proved to be too strong of a match for Rainbow Brite. She stripped Rainbow Brite of all her powers, turning her back into the human child named Wisp, and locked her away in a high-security Dungeon.

Hearing this news, Rainbow Brite’s friends, the Color Kids, attempted to free Wisp.

 

 

However, the Color Kids’ haste and overall lack of strategy lead to their undoing. They too were captured,  vested of their powers, and imprisoned.

With Rainbow Brite and the Color Kids out of the way, The Dark Princess relished the impending demise of life as we know it.

But what the Dark Princess didn’t know is that Orin had managed to steal the crystal containing the powers of Rainbow Brite and the Color Kids. Unable to free the kids from the dungeon without great risk to himself, Orin instead chose to flee to Earth to select a  new and stronger Rainbow Brite, along with her friends, the Color Kids.

The reason he had chosen Megan, Orin said, was not because she was the first blonde girl he had stumbled across, but rather he had heard of her superb athleticism  as a rugby player. With these skills, she would be able to kick the ass of the wannabe Princess and restore everything back to way it used to be; A color filled world, although Earth would still be plagued by little things like wars, pestilence, and poverty.

“So,” Orin asked once he finished his tragic tale, his little paws clutching Megan’s hands in supplication, “will you become the next Rainbow Brite and save the world from imminent doom?”

Before Megan could respond, the crowd of people at Hyperion who had been observing this whole scene with blatant interest (seriously, how often do people get the chance to observe a Sprite in real life?), shouted “DO IT, MEGAN!” “Save the Universe!” “RAINBOW BRITE, RAINBOW BRITE!”

Surrounded by this cacophony, Megan blushingly agreed. It was then that she was transformed from an ordinary College student into *** SHAZAMMM! ***

Rainbow Brite!

Now that this matter was settled, the next thing to be done was to select the Color Kids who would accompany Rainbow on her ass kicking mission.

Hundreds of people threw themselves at Rainbow, exclaiming that they would be the best for the job, but Orin and Rainbow already had the perfect crack team in mind.

Thus, the new Color Kids were chosen:

Steph transformed into Lemon Drop, with power over the color Yellow. Lemon Drop possesses a cheery disposition, able to brighten people's days even in the darkest gloom. When she smiles, you get this warm feeling inside you that makes you want to be friends and do what you can to keep her smiling.

Gigi became in charge of the color Pink and was renamed Cereja Blossom. Cereja is the wild child of the team. She is headstrong, but immensely playful. She distracts the competition with her fast talking and sweet exterior, and then packs them a punch of rainbow awesome. All the while they wonder why she wears a onesie with a belly dancing skirt.

Elena was dubbed Naranja Mango. She was to protect the color orange. Naranja is fiery and passionate. She is the instigator, the one with all the plans. Cereja may be a big partier, but Naranja makes the party. She is Rainbow's lead strategist for the mission.

Colleen became Aquamarine de la Greene, controlling the fate of the color green. She is the most considerate of the team, the one who holds all the Bright Colors in check. Aquamarine is laid-back and down to earth, all of which is reflected in her eco-concious style.

Jess, chosen as protector of the color Blue, was called Cobalt Pacific. Cobalt is the most sophisticated Color Kid, but at times she is just as silly as Cereja. She is the best actress on the crew and the best gymnast, able to perform stealthy maneuvers without drawing attention to herself.

Lastly, Karen transformed into the ferocious Red Dawn. She bites, but underneath this bite is a fierce loyalty and rapier wit. Red Dawn is Rainbow Brite's chief wingwoman, protector, and organizer of supplies.

Rainbow Brite and her friends were about to start planning their mission to stop the Dark Princess when they were interrupted by the legendary Jim Groom.

Now Jim Groom was not only the teacher of Digital Storytelling DS106,  the class Megan skipped in order to talk with Orin, but he was also the number #1 fan of the original Rainbow Brite. With her out of commission, Jim Groom wanted to do everything in his power to enact revenge on The Dark Princess.

While the group debated whether or not Jim Groom should join forces with the current Rainbow Brite as a Color Kid, Groom won everyone over for three reasons:

Reason #1- They needed a headquarters on Earth. Groom offered Dupont Hall to become the temporary Color Castle.

Reason #2- So far, the Color Kids were females only.  That was hardly gender equality right there!

Reason #3- Megan skipped THE-MOST-IMPORTANT-DS106-CLASS-EVERRRRR. She needed to do something big to make up for this absence or else she would #faiiil

Thus, Jim Groom became the final Color Kid, his gender proportionally represented in the group much like the proportion of males to females on the UMW campus:

Jim Groom transformed into The Peculiar Purple Pie Man. As the oldest member of the crew, P-man's experiences and friendship with people all over the universe is a tactical advantage. He is made of win and awesome and represents the most bamf color in the rainbow. P-Man has great faith in the talents of his teammates and is always encouraging them to give 300% to the mission.

Finally, with Rainbow Brite and her team assembled in their entirety, it was time for them to save the universe from destruction by The Dark Princess!

 

Coming to theatres in your area soon!

This post would not have been possible without the help of Ms. Colleen Trachy (former DS106ser) who aided me in character description for the color kids! Also, holla at Wikipedia for all the useful info about  the original Rainbow Brite TV show and the various internet sources I used  for the photos of the original Rainbow Brite characters.

 

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.