What is a photo scavenger hunt?
A photo scavenger hunt is a wonderful photographic activity to do with your children. It’s basically I Spy with a camera.
Each photo scavenger hunt needs a theme and as the country’s front windows are filled with rainbows I thought that our first theme had to be rainbows.
What do you need for a rainbow scavenger hunt?
First and foremost we need to start with a song.
Red and yellow and pink and green
Purple and orange and blue,
I can sing a rainbow,
Sing a rainbow,
Sing a rainbow too
Now we know the colours of a rainbow we just need a camera. Any camera will do, in fact a camera phone is the easiest type of camera to use and it’s most likely to be the camera you have on you.
The only software required is some basic editing software and to create montages on your phone I like to use Layout for Instagram.
How to begin your rainbow scavenger hunt
You can either start by looking for all the colours at the same time or do it one by one.
We preferred to tackle each colour individually one by one. We started off with the colour red and my daughter searched the house for 5 different things that were red.
She brought all the objects together and we photographed them all individually before moving onto the the next colour.
What to do with your images
Once we had taken the photos (using my phone) we imported them into Layout for Instagram.
We then created two different montages using four and five images from the same colour.
This was then repeated for each colour.
Once the montage images were created we printed each one and created a unique rainbow for our window (and for Instagram).
The Colour Red
The colour red stands for many things, danger, anger and are a few.
The wonderful thing about the colour red is that when it appears in either nature or the man made world it has a purpose and it often carries a strong message with it.
A red light shouts stop whereas a red berry sometimes means poisonous.
Perhaps think about when the colour red’s appearance is somewhere that contradicts its established meaning.
Or how about how two or three very different red objects can be combined to create an image with a whole new meaning.
Alternatively you could think about red as an emotion. Could you capture an image that expresses the colour red?
The Colour Yellow
Yellow is a colour that fits in well with Spring. We’re seeing lots of lovely daffodils, little chicks and even a few more glowing sunsets.
Yellow is one of those colours that you don’t realise but it’s everywhere. It’s the filler between spaces, a colour that can hold everything together. Businesses use yellow in their brand only when they really want to stand out and often it can appear rather garish if over used.
Yellow is also the colour that most types of artificial light give off. Have you even taken a picture inside and the flash didn’t go off? Because the camera didn’t change the white balance it ends up capturing the yellow hue that normal household bulbs give off.
If you are confident with your camera settings then change your camera’s white balance to a daylight setting. This will be illustrated by a sun or cloud. If you then photograph inside with electric lighting your images will appear yellow. If there is any natural light coming into the scene then this will tend to be bluish. Have fun experimenting.
The Colour Pink
If you have a daughter like me then finding pink objects in your home isn’t going to pose too much of a problem.
Stereotyping aside pink is the colour most often associated with charm, politeness, sensitivity, tenderness, sweetness, childhood, femininity and romance.
Pink can be very strong and vibrant in artificial objects and softer in nature. This isn’t always the case so why not try and find matching hues in man made and natural objects.
The Colour Green
When people think green they think nature.
Usually when a subject matter is easy to come by then creativity drops off a bit so don’t let that happen to you. Make it hard for yourself!
Here’s a few ideas you might want to try.
Create an image where the green element isn’t the largest part of the image but it demands the most attention.
Try finding green objects that are man made.
Create an abstract or close up image.
Experiment with changing the white balance on your camera.
The Colour Purple
Purple exists somewhere between red and blue and most often associated with royalty, magic, and mystery.
Think about finding purple objects that contradict this meaning as well as those that support it. How different are these objects?
The Colour Orange
Orange is the colour most associated with amusement, the unconventional, extroverts, warmth, fire, energy, activity, danger, taste and aroma and the autumn.
Don’t just photograph an orange, at least make it a tangerine.
The Colour Blue
Picasso had a blue period so why shouldn’t you? Aside from finding lots of interesting blue subjects to photograph you always have the option of getting creative with your white balance.
A small change to your white balance settings will create a bluish shade to everything in your scene. Most of the time this isn’t the effect you want but if you have a mixture of light sources (daylight and indoor lighting of example) then you can utilise white balance quite creatively.
Blue has way of making everything seem very cold so you could try and achieve the opposite (if you think you can).
