Color Theory

May 28

The Class and the Project:

At University of Central Oklahoma (UCO in Edmond, OK), the Photographic Arts majors have to take a Senior Portfolio class where students focus on a single art project for the whole semester. At the beginning of the class, our professor, Mark Zimmerman, explained that we needed to come up with a few ideas on what our project would be. We can get inspiration from an assignment we did in the past, expand on a project we have already done, or a completely new concept.

The Inspiration:

Alright, the first thing to know about me is that my mind goes 1000 miles a second and I think of a million ideas to do. I started thinking about continuing on my personal project “Natural State” for the assignment but I wasn’t 100% sure about it. I talked to my professor and we both decided I should expand on my color theory assignment from the Color Photography class I had with him over the summer.

The color theory assignment was super fun for me and challenging in a way that I had to think of ways to execute monochromatic, complementary, analogous and triadic schemes without repeating outfits or colors. I wanted to focus on just one type of color scheme and monochromatic would be the best option. Told my class during critiques and they all thought it would be great, but do the whole rainbow! Okay, cool, great, awesome… BUT I DON’T HAVE THE WHOLE RAINBOW OF BACKGROUNDS!!!!! Let me tell ya something, photography equipment is EX.PEN.SIVE, the little 4’12 yd rolls of paper may not come across expensive but $35 PER COLOR gets pricey. This meant I had to buy seven more colors to complete the rainbow. My poor college student wallet, but I made it work.

Moodboard and Process:

You already know what time it is, MOODBOARD TIIIME!! Open up my computer and split screen google with pinterest and color theory articles in tabs and google slides *neck crack* time to get to work. I decided to use color psychology in this project with how colors can portray and mean different things.

Once I got the moodboard together and finalized, now it was time to plan and pick models. I know I wanted to try and get all the colors shot before spring break so just in case I could have time to do damage control (foreshadowing…) and reshoot if need be. While I was thinking of models I had a good handful of my usuals I wanted to include in this project but I wanted to try and get a few new faces. Some of the colors came naturally to me in who I would use. For example, I wanted Emily for yellow, Zaviana for red, Tara for pink, and Fern for orange. I contacted people right away to make sure they were available first before I got my hopes up and to make sure it was all going to get done before spring break. Little did I know, spring break was a strict deadline for the world…

Covid and Damage Control:

On March 25th 2020, UCO sent out an announcement about the campus closing for lockdown due to Covid-19. I had a goal to finish photographing the photos before spring break so I had the whole time to edit but now I didn’t have the option to reshoot if I needed to. There were so many technical difficulties I had with certain colors that at the time I would’ve reshot and moved on. Thankfully I was photographing my personal project “Natural State” on the side since I had worked with some new models during that time. Thankfully my professor was realistic and I explained there were some coloring issues with a few of the main colors in the rainbow and the whole project would look incomplete. I started spiraling thinking all the worst and frustrated I couldn’t figure out how to fix it. I abandoned the project completely, because I was hard on myself for not figuring it out. I didn’t do photoshoots for a while after that since the weight of an unfinished project was weighing on me.

April 2022 I started a new job at a marketing agency as a contract photographer. After a few weeks of starting I began looking at old projects and wondered what I could do to fix the lighting issues I had and creative issues as well. As I started to look at them with fresh eyes I saw what I could do to make the situation better and finally get these images done and a weight lifted off my shoulders.

What I Used and The People:

Equipment: Canon 5D mk III, Canon 24-105 f 4, Canon 100mm f 2.8 macro, and Tamron 35 f 1.4

Lighting: Two Einstein strobes with one small and one large Paul C Buff softbox (my basic setup).

Backgrounds: Savage seamless paper in Crimson, Tangelo, Canary, Evergreen, Blue Mist, Orchid, Coral, Chestnut, Black, Focus Grey, and White

The Team:
Models (in color order) - Zaviana @gxldenzayy (she/her), Fern @fern_irene (they/èl), Emily @issalittlebunni (she/her), Ash @ashchinda (she/her/they/thon), Rocio @_anahirocio__ (she/her), Marqus @marqusqyce (he/him), Tara @tuba_tara (she/her), Nebby @nebbynoodle (she/her), Hunter @touboulie (he/him), Raymond @raymonds_life (he/him), and Hannah @hannah_danielle_ (she/her).