Fear not, I have no plans to bore you with endless vacation slides, but over the next few days I thought I'd post some images taken from Disney World mostly featuring more obscure subjects, or favorites taken from unusual vantage points. I took a lot of pictures while I was there and learned two things. First; I was incredibly lucky in my ability to take a vast amount of pictures of the park's architecture and features without any humans obscuring the shot. Looking through the files of photos I took, you'd almost think I had the park to myself. (Of course I also have numerous shots of beaming family members among the Disney World landscape features. Second; It's almost impossible to take a decent shot inside any of the rides. The Prohibition of flash photography while preserving the illusions of say the Pepper's Ghost feature of the Haunted Mansion banquet/ballroom, also means that everything inside the rides is too dark. Even It's a Small World, while being the most amazingly designed ride, which is not at all hampered by the clearly visible drop ceilings and plywood and papier-mache construction of the sets, was virtually impossible to shoot with a digital camera, due to low light levels and the combined motion of the ride boats as well as the figures on display in the ride itself. What I wouldn't give for a walk through of these rides with proper lighting conditions.
From top to bottom:
The "Walter E. Disney" train pulling into the Frontierland station.
Decorative poles inside Adventureland.
Preliminary Alice and Wonderland artwork including some by Mary Blair.
The Map to Tom Sawyer Island.
A mural on the wall inside the Pinocchio Village Haus restaurant.
Harper's Mill and the "Liberty Belle."
A headhunter as seen from the Jungle Cruise.
The Mad Hatter and Alice go for a tea cup ride. This photo was taken from another spinning tea cup.
One of the monorails.
A group of fish makes its way up Main Street during the nightly parade.
Davy Jones projected onto a mist waterfall as one of the new "enhancements" to Pirates of the Caribbean.
The Dumbo statue near the "Partners" statue of Walt Disney and Mickey Mouse.
The Fantasia Brooms at Downtown Disney.
Gertie the Dinosaur ice cream stand at Disney Studios.
Sign outside the gym in the Wilderness Lodge Villa.
The murals in the Pinocchio Disneyland Haus blew me away when I first saw them long ago. I stood close and noted the brush marks on every wall. I was a crazy kid
ReplyDeletepushing strangers aside for closer looks. The details and unexpected surprises even in a food place made me a Disneyland/world fan. Too bad newer additions (cough,cough...Cal Adventures) don't measure up.
John,
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing these pictures with us.
You've captured some of my favorite scenes!
Dave -- Thanks for the personal anecdote. It doesn't surprise me any seeing what a terrific artist you've become. I had planned to take some time while my kids were napping to venture into the Magic kingdom by myself to wander around taking more pictures of just the decorative elements within the park, but it never happened. Alas, my kids were more interested in the rides and poked fun at their dad for taking pictures of trashcans.
ReplyDeleteGeorge-- Thanks for the kind words and for stopping by. I'll be posting more pictures throughout the week, so please stop by again. I only discovered your site about a month before my trip, but plan to work my way through your archives of treasure.
I had a devil of a time myself (digital camera-wise) in most of the rides. I have a nighttime setting on mine which helped a little, but not a lot.
ReplyDeleteThere were a couple moments on the Haunted Mansion ride where I threw caution to the wind and used my flash (the doom buggies ahead and behind us were empty), but all of the pictures look so boring as the flash stripped all effects work. I guess that's the whole point.
Next time we go I so want to take the behind the scenes tour, but it's a little steeply priced...
Smurfwreck -- I haven't seen you here in a while. Welcome back.
ReplyDeleteI want to take a couple of those behind the scenes tours on my next visit as well. If I had known how little I would actually end up spending on souvenirs, I could have afforded it this time, but you have to book the tours ahead of time.
The further frustration of digital cameras is that on the little display screens it's really hard to tell if a shot is bad. On that small screen all of my shots taken inside of It's a Small World looked great, and I really thought I was bringing home some finely composed treasure. The composition was still great, but the motion blur ruined all that work.
One of the finest Disney World picture I have seen around. Do you have any from the Hollywood Studios ?
ReplyDelete