Photo Supply Co. Disneyland

This is the photo store in Disneyland while shooting the bracketed series I noticed the employees mugging for the camera. I was shooting a wide angle of the building and was hoping they would show up in the final image. I had to composite (pick a images and adjust the exposure, color and saturation to match the HDR image) the employees because they were moving between exposures. To see the employees inside the building the print would have to be pretty large, so I have included a closeup of the inside of the building.

Cars Land California Adventure

This is Cars Land at California Adventure my favorite thing about Cars Land is the details like the flowers that are made out of taillights and the pots are tires in the first image. Disney did a good job making you feel like you are in Cars Land everything down to the traffic light blinking slower every third time.

George Carlin played Fillmore in the Cars movie and I still regret not taking the time to go see his comedy act. 

Mad T Party California Adventure

This is the Mad T Party at California Adventure, it is like a outdoor nightclub for both kids and adults. Although it is not my type of thing I knew it would some great images. I had to help the software with the use of layer masks and adding images on top and painting in portions of the image. The movement of the people created semi transparent people along with the changing images on the huge monitors displaying the constantly changing graphics confused the software. 

I had shot about 60 shots trying to get different lighting effects, when The man, woman and their daughter walked up and looked at my camera on a tripod and decided to stand directly in front of it. It irritated me at the time but, at least I had plenty of shots. I liked the black and yellow checker board that are spinning into a vortex and how the red seems to be shining on the left side making it look three dimensional. I decided to leave the family in the shot the girl actually appears twice in the image once with dad front center and once with mom on the right.


This is the main stage and a DJ with rabbit ears was scratching records when I was photographing the Mad T Party. I could not get a shot of the main stage because there were too many people and my tripod would have created a trip hazzard. I'm sure there was a way but it had been a long day.


This is the stage located under the arch in the House of Cards.

West Woodin Street Bridge Chelan Washington

This is a backup shot I had planned after a shot of the head of the lake fell through. The day we got to Manson Washington the sky was filled with cumulus clouds that were a bright pink. I hoped for the same thing with no luck for the rest of the trip.  The bridge is on West Woodin Street in Chelan Washington.  The resort at the far in the bridge is Campbell's. I shot three slightly different composition bracketing for HDR and plenty of the same exposure so I could pick and choose the final shots to be used in the final HDR image.

Philips 66 Kent Oregon

I have shot this Philips 66 in Kent Oregon on Highway 97 several times.  It's is amazing what an image shows that we forget about. The most obvious thing is the Orange Crush sign on the roof. You can also see the fuel pumps are made by Gilbarco, a sticker in the window for Wynn's Oil Company another sticker for Salem Cigarettes and a sticker for certificate B restaurant. This station has been closed since gas was 66 1/2 cents per gallon that was in 1979. I have been trying to show the cars going by because there is no reason to stop anymore since the station is closed. I got that in the second shot. I was not happy with previous attempts.

Dumbo in Motion

In the first shot I combined a shot of the Dumbo ride while it was stopped with the HDR version of it in motion so you could see what ride it was. Ideally I would of loved to have a shot with Dumbo froze midair that lined up with the blur. I have ideas for next time. In the second shot I like the way the ride is blurred from top to bottom and you can see detail of the scene behind the ride.

 

 

 

Mark Twain Paddle Boat Disneyland

Disneyland has a way of transporting you into the land of fantasy kind of like the stories Mark Twain wrote. You can hop on a the Mark Twain Riverboat and pretend you are on the Mississippi River on a paddle boat. When I think of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn I can't help but think of what a great way to grow up. Living on the Mississippi River living out real life adventures. It makes me think of my childhood and the adventures I had. I can go back to some of the places and they just don't feel the same as an adult. They don't have the same sense of intrigue, Disneyland transcends that having something of interest no matter how old you are. Photography has taught me to slow down and enjoy the moment. Whether I have a camera or not I watch the way the sun hits objects and rakes across them it changes from minute to minute.  I remember as a kid I would watch the shadows creep across the ground. I also watch clouds pass by in the sky and try to guess what they will do next. It is a great way to relax and forget your troubles. Looking at things differently is a new way to enjoy things. Quite often I learn a new technique or come up with a new idea and want to go back to a location I have been before to try something different. It's a way to keep thing fresh and new.

I used a longer shutter speed to get a sense of motion. This image is tone mapped due to the motion you can not line up two images. The boat is not as sharp as I would normally like but that is the trade off to show objects in motion. I could of used a shorter shutter speed but that would freeze the paddle wheel.

This image could have been tone mapped due to the low contrast caused by the over cast sky. I realized that after I tone mapped the image above and it showed just as much detail after I had created this one in HDR and composted the white boat in from a single shot of the boat.

King Arthur's Carousel (photo merge)

The image below is of King Arthur's Carousel at Disneyland. When I shot it I did not notice I did not get all of the carousel. I was disappointed, but remembered photo merge in Photoshop. I figured I would try to save the image. Before I used photo merge I had to align the image because it was shot off kilter. I then copied the original image and flipped it so I could try to use the left side information to complete the right side of the image as if it were shot for a panoramic image. I could not get the images to align with out checking the geometric distortion correction which is why you see the curve in the bottom of the image. I made a blank layer under the final image and filled it with black. You can not see it on the top because the sky is so dark. After I merged the two images I flipped it again because there were blemishes where Photshop did not blend it well. I then made a mask that was black to remove the whole image and painted white to remove the blemishes and the a little cleanup with the clone stamp tool, healing brush and paint brush in color mode. The resulting image is just below.

 

 

This is the original image that was shot. I did not notice that I cut the right side of the carousel off until I tried to process the image. I originally was going to scrap the shot, but then thought of photo merge to try and save it.

 

I flipped this image after it was aligned in a layer on top of the middle image in this post. You can tell if you look at the top of the right hand side of the image you can see the lights from the top of the carousel.

Other images from Disneyland are at the follwing link The Magic of Walt Disney.

The Magic of Walt Disney

Even though Walt Disney  (December 5, 1901 – December 15, 1966) passed on less than one year into my life his legacy lives on in our minds, the origional Disneyland park and the Disney animation. His nephew Roy E. Disney  son of Roy O. Disney (co-founder of what is now The Walt Disney Company) was the last member of the Disney family to be actively involved in the company. The company continues to grow in 2006 bought Pixar which made Apple's Steve Jobs Disney's largest shareholder. Just recently on October 30, 2012 The Walt Disney Company purchased Lucasfilm. The Walt Disney Company continues to open more parks and resorts around the world. All this started because Walt Disney wanted a place where adults and their children could go and have fun together.

Keep an eye out for  more posts of images I took while I was in Disneyland and a tutorial explaining what it took to process the first image in this post.