I love that you can capture the Tree of Life from so many different angles. Again, those nice beautiful clouds were present in this shot as well. I'm kind of having a bit of a love hate thing with that algae. I'm also having some trouble determining whether or not I over did it with the processing here so please let me know. Enjoy!
Nothing incredibly special about this shot. It's from the aviary found along the Pangani Forest Exploration Trail. This is a Brimstone Canary found in South Africa. The one thing I really like about this shot is with my lens at 105mm and wide open at f/5.6 I got a nice bokeh in the background while having a sharp yet soft focus on this little guy. I also really liked how the background colors contrasted against the yellow in the canary. Please let me know what you all think, I've been trying to get a bit better about varying my DoF in my shots. :) Enjoy!
I know that we've all seen this shot before, and I wanted to still take since I wanted all those tourist style views with my SLR. What I really liked from this result are the clouds halfway through the scene. Gives a nice twist to a classic view. Got to love those fluffy Florida clouds. :) Enjoy!
After we were finished at breakfast at AKL, we headed over to Animal Kingdom. I will have to say that one of my favorite views in all of WDW is when you first crest the bridge and the Tree of Life comes into view. It's a fantastic Disney icon and fits the park extremely well. This is a 3 shot HDR merged in Photomatix and adjusted in Lightroom. Enjoy!
First of all, Boma breakfast is absolutely fanastic! It was a nicely unique breakfast buffet which was nice for a change. A couple of the highlights were the scrambled eggs with goat cheese and chives, fresh fruit, a carving station, and some of the best banana bread I've had in a while. After breakfast was finished, we explored Animal Kingdom Lodge a bit before heading to Animal Kingdom. I seriously think they put this bridge in the lobby just for us photographers to get a nice shot from. After visiting this resort for the first time, I'd really like to try and stay there at some point, it looks very nice. Enjoy!
So funny story. We had a breakfast ADR at Boma in the Animal Kingdom lodge since we'd never been to the resort. We get to the resort and park in handicapped parking. We walk in and are walking down the hallway, and walking, and walking. We end up at the other end of the resort in the lobby of Kidani. Totally opposite end of the resort but it afforded us this great view of the lobby before the wonderful cast members shuttled us back up to Jambo House in time for our ADR. I really liked this lobby as well as the spectacular lobby of Jambo House. We'll get there tomorrow. :) Enjoy!
Here's a view of the courtyard that our room at Port Orleans French Quarter overlooked. I can't say enough great thing about this resort as it was both lively and fun while still being a bit slower paced and definitely one of the quietest resorts I've ever stayed at on Disney property. We had three rooms in building 5 that were all three refurbished rooms. The new rooms are beautiful and comfortable. We had everything we needed all week long which is in true Disney fashion. :) Enjoy!
I had some really good shots from our resort, Port Orleans French Quarter. My favorite part of the resort was the pool area and all of these gators that were rocking out to some jazz. Here's a bit of fun with my UWA. Let me know what you all think! :) Enjoy!
I would have to say that out of all the directions to head in from the hub of the Magic Kingdom, Tomorrowland has to be my favorite. With this shot, I wasn't particularly happy that I didn't get the entire word Tomorrowland in the frame. Reason being was that I wanted to see how close I could get to the sign itself while still getting everything else I wanted in the frame. I ended up about a foot or two away from the front leg and am pretty pleased with the result. I'll leave it up to you guys and gals for final judgment! :) Enjoy!
This shot was a bit of a bittersweet capture. My brother Josh is disabled and in a wheelchair on long trips. Disney is extremely excellent about accomidating our every need in getting onto attractions. At the Haunted Mansion, we go in through the exit and get on where other guests are getting off. This meant we got to walk right in front of the Mansion, which afforded me to get this neat perspective of the Mansion. The only downside is that we didn't get to go through the stretching room. Some of us came back and went through it again of course so it was all worth it. And the shots I got were pretty decent. Enjoy!
Since our last trip in 2008, as some of you know my girlfriend, roommate and I got into cacti and succulent plants at home. One thing I was very impressed with in a number of location around the parks were the spectacular displays they had featuring these unique plants. Like the area around Big Thunder Mountain Railroad is littered with some huge Blue Agave plants and very large cactus. It really does help add to the theme of the area and would definitely help cut down on people try to cut through the line. lol. I have a bunch of other shots of other agaves and cactus we saw that I will share at some point. The attention to detail is something I've always admired about the Disney Parks and that is definitely apparent here. Enjoy!
One thing I was upset to hear about was the unfortunate closing of the Enchanted Tiki Room due to fire damage. I was really hoping to see the show not because I like the Under New Management version (which I don't) but to shoot the inside of the attraction. I like many others am of course hoping that this show goes back to it's classic form. It was a much better show and put no one through having to hear Iago's voice anymore. :) Enjoy!
One of the things I really enjoy about Adventure are the building area around Sunshine Tree Terrace here. The architecture of the buildings around here are just awesome. I'm incredibly fond of the small tiki lights on the left of this shot. Enjoy!
As many of you have probably already noticed, I thought it would be cool to pick shots from here and there in the progression of the trip to highlight certain things and experiences. After that, I will be posting other shots from random points in the trip. So making our way from Main Street U.S.A., we stroll into Adventureland. I grabbed this shot on the way back to the Jungle Cruise. I really do love Aloha Isle and couldn't resist getting the sign and the beautiful blooming tree. It was really great this trip to see the spring blooms. It was and at this point still is a nice change from our nonspringness lately. Spring is coming, it's just coming a lot faster for the people of Florida. :) Hope you all enjoy the walkthrough of our trip. If you have any additional suggestions of things you'd like me to cover or highlight, feel free to ask and as always, Enjoy!
I would have to say that one of my favorite pieces of architecture in all of WDW in that of the Crystal Palace. I just really love the architecture with the glass domes and that old style solarium look. The early morning sun was really lighting these up nice. This is another thing I'd like to shoot more of next trip. Hopefully snag a couple at sunset too as I didn't get a chance to this past trip. :) Enjoy!
This was one of my favorites from this morning at Magic Kingdom. I really love Main Street and love spending time there. I got this one in Town Square of some of the great blooms hanging from the lightposts. I was really happy I had another chance to get back to Main Street for some shooting. :) Enjoy!
A morning entering the Magic Kingdom for some attractions and shooting. I caught this shot as we were entering the park and was much happier with this which was the tighter crop. Enjoy!
Riding from the Wilderness Lodge to the Magic Kingdom is neat for a few reasons. It passes the now Disney past features such as River Country and Discovery Island. You also get greeted by this view of the Contemporary and Bay Lake Tower Resorts around the bend. These are beautiful resorts that I will stay in at some point. :) Enjoy!
I know we all say that we have a lot of "favorite resorts", I think I say it about every resort I stay at. But there is something familiarly warm and comfortable about Wilderness Lodge that I particularly enjoy. We stayed there back 2005 and it was just a great place to come back to at the end of the day. This past trip we had breakfast our first morning at Whispering Canyon becuase Jenea had never eaten there. And Jenea likes ketchup with her breakfast. lol. Thanks to those of you who got that. :) This shot is a 3 shot HDR from the highest point I was allowed to go without being a concierge level guest. :) Enjoy!
Here's a shot during golden hour of the entrance to Innoventions. I really like this are of Epcot. I mean, I love Epcot as a whole, but the are different reasons for Future World and World Showcase. I definitely can say that Epcot was and is my favorite park to shoot in. :) Enjoy!
I really enjoyed my Sigma 10-20mm f/4-5.6 while we were in WDW. I really liked how close I could get to things, while still getting a nice wide angle. This is a corner of the Mexico Pavilion near the Handicap entrance. I was walking up that way with my little bro to get in for our dinner, and saw this angle. It had good shadows, good golden hour light, and best of all no people. :) Enjoy!
One thing in Florida that I can never get enough of are those wonderful white fluffy clouds! For one, they make the daytime shots that much more enjoyable, and in this case makes those sunsets extra great. I know this one isn't my strongest composition wise, but I couldn't pass up these clouds and sunset rays reflecting off the water. Enjoy!
As anyone who's been there during the Flower and Garden Festival will know, Epcot is beautiful this time of year. One thing I was most excited to see where the variety of topiaries spread through Epcot for the festival. Our first night we were just getting into Epcot around golden hour and this topiary of Mickey, Minnie, and Pluto really got a shot of gold along with all the other colors in the plants. There were a surplus of flowers all over the parks this time of year, but Epcot is acceptional! Enjoy!
The first park that we planned to visit on our trip was Epcot. This was for two reasons, one because we wanted to see Illuminations our first night, and two because we had a dinner ADR at San Angel Inn for all nine of us. This was my first HDR of the trip and of course it had to be of Spaceship Earth. I was really pleased with how my Sigma 10-20mm f/4-5.6 performed on this trip. I can't wait to share the rest of my shots with you all. I've been processing all day today and things are turning out pretty good. Can't wait! Enjoy!
So we are back from another fanastic trip to Walt Disney World. This was my first trip with my D90 and my girlfriend Jenea's first with her D3100. I figured the best place to start with shot posting was of course, at the beginning. We will call this our base of operation for the trip. We stayed at Port Orleans French Quarter for the first time and it was a great resort. I was really happy to get one of the newly refurbished rooms in building 5. The resort as a whole had a great vibe and was a great place to come home to every night or for a break in the middle of the day. I can't wait to share my other shots with you as I get them all processed. I shot a little over 1,600 photos, but a lot of those are duplicates from conituous shooting. Can't wait to process all of them to see what I actually ended up with. But like I said, we had a great trip and it was awesome meeting up with Cory, Larry, Kathy, Katy, Andrea, Jeff, and Ryan. Jenea and I both had a great time and can't wait to get back. Enjoy!
