Alan's photo trip report, Jun/Jul 2009

[alan]

Thanks for all the positive comments, everyone

regards,
/alan

 

[boBQuincy]

Wow, these trip reports are getting intense! I feel bad with my few measly photos from my trip in February, and almost no story to go with them.
The bar has been raised very high indeed! Great work Alan!

 

[DisneySuiteFreak]

How wonderful! But I'm sorry, you can't pick out just one of these girls and call her cute - they were all beautiful!
I've got a few more from the show, so if you - or they - would be interested then PM me an email address and I'll send them on to you. I had unfortunately left my camera on the wrong setting and so had to resort to using flash in some, but there are some nice ones of the poi and the dance at the end, as well as various other parts of the show.
I really enjoyed the show - I love to watch dance (I could never call myself a "dancer", having seen what real dancers go through. But I love trying!) and the show was very "up" and happy. I've done enough shows to know how hard it can be to keep that going night after night, but they did a great job. If you happen to come across them, do please tell them that I had a lovely evening and thought that everyone did really well.
And I'm convinced that there is something unnatural about them being able to move their hips in that way... But I'll happily watch again to verify my observations ;-)
regards, /alan

Ooookay, they were all beautiful, but I'm partial I guess! Thanks for the offer of the photos, Alan. I'll send you a PM.
I can't dance worth a hill of beans, but I hear you about the dancing. I can't figure it out either....Some of the dancers I know have been training since childhood and then there are those that are good at faking it.

Wow, these trip reports are getting intense! I feel bad with my few measly photos from my trip in February, and almost no story to go with them. The bar has been raised very high indeed! Great work Alan!

I know right? I still have to finish my TR... I am horrible at writing TRs.

 

[Todd_H]

Great TR, Alan! Thanks so much for sharing it with all of us! You captured some great shots/moments and it looks like you all had a great time. Glad you guys had a safe trip back across the pond.

Wow, these trip reports are getting intense! I feel bad with my few measly photos from my trip in February, and almost no story to go with them.
The bar has been raised very high indeed! Great work Alan!

I know right? I still have to finish my TR... I am horrible at writing TRs.

I was already intimidated enough to write a PTR/TR for our upcoming September trip, but between Alan's and Tom's TRs... wow... gonna be tough to step up!

 

[Pea-n-Me]

Awesome trip report, I enjoyed reading it! Loved your photos, too!

 

[alan]

Thank you

I was surprised by how much I enjoyed writing it, and how much getting to the end of it felt like geting to the end of my holiday again!

And since I've now been able to use it three times, it definitely feels like effort well spent!

regards,
/alan

 

[NC State]

Thank you Alan, it looks like you and your family had a great vacation here in the USA. Please come again, enjoy reading your report and your pictures were great!

PS....come back when we need the rain, it looks like it rain every day.

 

[alan]

PS....come back when we need the rain, it looks like it rain every day.

Hee hee... you can take the boy out of Scotland, but you can't take Scotland out of the boy

regards,
/alan

 

[oregondaddyof2]

These pics are great... Great report...

 

[jinia]

Alan, thank you for such a great TR and amazing photos! I felt like I was there!

 

[Quicklabs]

Fantastic trip report! I felt like I got a mini-"holiday" myself just reading it and looking at the great pics. You sure have some steady hands for those show shots. The Spectro firefly dancer is probably the best I've ever seen. Great, great work.

 

[daisy2]

Awesome trip report!! It just makes me more excited for our pending trip in November of 2010 thanks for sharing.

 

[mermaid&cinderella]

Great report and pics! What kind of camera do you have? Because you took some unbelievably gorgeous pics!

 

[alan]

Thank you very much for all the lovely comments

The bulk of the photographs were taken with a Canon 350D SLR. It was always a fairly basic model, and is now considered quite elderly. I think that the basic EOS 1000D (Rebel XS) probably has around the closest spec.

I hated this camera when I first bought it - I couldn't get a picture that came close to the quality, sharpness and colour that I got from my Powershot Pro 1 (Canon's compact camera with an L series lens). Indeed, I was all set to sell the SLR, but then I borrowed a friend's 70-200mm L, and my photographic world changed.

So now I have a 24-105mm f/4.0 L lens, and that was the most often used on this trip. It's expensive, but I found it made an amazing difference to the photographs I take.

I do occasionally think of upgrading my camera body, but given that my main hobby is stage photography, the only upgrade that makes sense is to a 5D... and that's just out of my price range.

The other point to make is that all of these photographs were shot RAW and post-processed. The high-ISO photographs in particular were fed through Neat Image at 80% strength, then resized and sharpened. That really does help the images "pop" a good bit.

Also, the firweorks were all increased in brightness by one full stop in Lightrom, then the "blacks" slider increased quite substantially - often to around 20 or so. That really brightens the fireworks and keeps the sky nice and dark.

regards,
/alan

PS The other cameras were a Canon G10 (nice, but still noisy even at base ISO and pretty slow to focus) and a cheapo waterproof camera (fantastic fun, and makes me want a better waterproof for next time)

 

[manning]

I liked the picture you took of the monorail. I kept looking at it and thought it could be improved. I photoshopped the fence and white building out and increased the contrast of the sky. I would like to use it as the background on my computer if you don't mind.

 

[alan]

Looks a nice edit... please feel free to use it as a background

regards,
/alan

 

[miprender]

Alan.... love love love all those photos.

Great trip report too!!!

Thanks for sharing.

 

[SusanEllen]

Alan,
Here's my late reply. I read almost exclusivley on the UK DIS Boards even though I'm in the USA because all of my Dis friends are in the UK. Anyway, I'm afraid I would have missed your entertaining report entirely if you hadn't posted your video on the UK Board with a link to your TR. I've had great fun for the past couple of hours working my way through your photo rich report. Excellent job.

A couple of comments--so glad you finally got to see the entire Electrical Water Pageant. When you posted the photos of the final barges being used with the 4th of July Wishes I was afraid you were going to miss the usual program. Delighted to read you saw it a few nigihts later. EWP may be the oldest show at WDW (though the Hoop-de-doo has been there a long time, too). It's modest and low tech and watching it always makes me feel connected to Disney history. The other thing I wanted to mention since I don't see that any of the replies you've received so far clear this up for you is about the characters you didn't recognize. Because you included photos of them I think I can shed some light. The ones pictured in MK are the Mayor of Main Street and his wife, not from any particular Disney movie, I think, but rather a generic small town politician and wife to welcome visitors to their "town." The ones you photographed on Hollywood Boulevard at DHS are streetmosphere entertainers who periodically do audience interactive skits. They are supposed to help create the feeling of being in Hollywood during the !920s, -30s, and -40s, the Golden Days of Hollywood.

Thanks again for taking your DIS readers along on your holiday. Come back soon, have some more fun, then tell us all about it.

 

[alan]

...
The other thing I wanted to mention since I don't see that any of the replies you've received so far clear this up for you is about the characters you didn't recognize. Because you included photos of them I think I can shed some light. The ones pictured in MK are the Mayor of Main Street and his wife, not from any particular Disney movie, I think, but rather a generic small town politician and wife to welcome visitors to their "town." The ones you photographed on Hollywood Boulevard at DHS are streetmosphere entertainers who periodically do audience interactive skits. They are supposed to help create the feeling of being in Hollywood during the !920s, -30s, and -40s, the Golden Days of Hollywood.
...

Ah, that makes a lot of sense... thank you for explaining it.

I'm hoping to make it back in a couple of years. Pending redundancy has put all plans on hold, but there's some light at the end of that tunnel and I may soon be able to start planning Summer 2010

Thanks again,

regards,
/alan

 

[my3squeals]

I found your trip report while searching for CBR pics. I loved all of your pics!