FRIENDS, PHOTOGRAPHS, and Birthday FUN! 3/3 30 Day Photo Challenge Day 21

[-Hope-]

Okay, I'm loving Karen's idea to share some of our favorite photos and also shots we didn't get that we want.

My family LOVED MK and we spent A LOT of time in this park, riding every ride and visiting every attraction that we wanted to, enjoying lots of tasty treats, meeting characters, and partying it up at MNSSHP. But with SO much going on I didn't get all of the pictures I really wanted. I have a list of shots I want involving Cinderella's castle. Before I share those I'll show you one of my favorites with the castle in the background that I already have...

I love this shot and knew I wanted it months before we went on our trip. However when we were actually at WDW my kids really didn't want to take the time pose for the shot and as a result I didn't get the composition or exposure exactly like I wanted. I obviously won't be able to try again with this shot since I'll be sans kiddos ( ) but I have a few other castle shots in mind that I want. A few of those are:

• Walt and Mickey with the castle in the background. I got Walt and Mickey last time but not with the castle also in the shot.
• balloons on MS with the castle in the background.
• A shot of Prince Charming's Carrousel through the castle archway at night
• I'd even like some of my 'food porn' shots to be a little more artistic. I've seen shots of ice cream held up with the castle in the background.

Those are just a few of my dream shots on MS. I'll share another pic from somewhere else in the park later along with more shots from my wish list. For our non-photog readers this may have just turned into the most boring PTR ever.

 

[Parla]

Now I'm really looking forward to the TR part of this girls trip.

 

[Twoboysnmygirl]

Now I'm really looking forward to the TR part of this girls trip.

Well you only have to wait about two years then!


Hope, I got some with Mickey & Walt and the castle, but I had rented the lens and it came with a lens cover. Apparently the cover was not the right size because when I started looking at my pics (when we sat down at CP, no less!) I noticed that you could see the lens cover in the corner of all my shots! Some of them I could crop out, but I definitely need to revisit these! MK can be tough in the early AM, the sun is coming up to the left of the castle and my sky overexposed quite a few times. You would think it wouldn't be, but I had bluer skies in the afternoon shots? The photopass pics had overexposed sky as well.

Ok, we're probably boring everyone to death with our photography chat! THIS is why our families will not be coming on the trip!

Oh, but there must be time for libations. Did you put that in the title? Photography and drinks! Parla is going to practice drinking around the world on her trip and report back to us! Right Parla! And she said there will be photographic evidence too!

 

[-Hope-]

I didn't put drinks in the title but what else could I have possibly meant by fun???

Yes, Parla- we'll be waiting for that report so we can prepare ourselves.

 

[Parla]

Oh, but there must be time for libations. Did you put that in the title? Photography and drinks! Parla is going to practice drinking around the world on her trip and report back to us! Right Parla! And she said there will be photographic evidence too!

I didn't put drinks in the title but what else could I have possibly meant by fun???

Yes, Parla- we'll be waiting for that report so we can prepare ourselves.

I've got some practicing to do. Just tried to upload a picture to ImageShack with my Droid but it is humongous. I can't figure out how to change the size. When I upload to facebook it automatically resizes. I will probably have to actually change the settings on the camera in the phone.

 

[Tink-erin-belle]

I am loving this idea to post pictures you took and then list the pictures of things you want. Being the amateur that I am, I think the pictures you two posted are great! I’m also loving the photography chatter that has started because – being the amateur that I am - I want to learn…and also possibly copy down your lists of pictures you want to take We all know I like to steal your ideas

 

[-Hope-]

I've got some practicing to do. Just tried to upload a picture to ImageShack with my Droid but it is humongous. I can't figure out how to change the size. When I upload to facebook it automatically resizes. I will probably have to actually change the settings on the camera in the phone.

I wish I could help but I don't have a Droid and I don't use ImageShack so I'm pretty much useless on this one.

I am loving this idea to post pictures you took and then list the pictures of things you want. Being the amateur that I am, I think the pictures you two posted are great! I’m also loving the photography chatter that has started because – being the amateur that I am - I want to learn…and also possibly copy down your lists of pictures you want to take We all know I like to steal your ideas

Steal away Erin!

 

[-Hope-]

So, I thought I'd share one of my fave pics from a different park... AK!

When Karen and I were discussing pictures the other day I told her that I think I could have stood and watched Divine (sp??) and taken her picture for an hour. She's just so graceful and her face is so expressive and soulful, I just hated rushing. But we were heading for the Nemo show and didn't want to miss it so rush we did. No Nemo show to hold us back this time so I'm sure I'll be getting more pics of the lovely Divine.

 

[Twoboysnmygirl]

LOVE Divine! I didn't get to see her this last trip, only on my first trip when I didn't have a camera, so at least we have a reason to go to AK now since the only thing I wanted to do there was go on EE! We can just park ourselves on a bench in the middle of the path from Africa to Asia and wait for her!

I forgot to post a pic of my early morning castle shot, I had some real issues with the sky that morning as I mentioned, I had to edit my colors a little to get more blue b/c it was just too over exposed for my liking. I want to revisit this shot, I wanted to get the actual time on the clock, but I think I might have to use my zoom from the train station to get the actual angle I want, this was taken from mainstreet.

 

[-Hope-]

Love the idea of getting the clock in the shot!

 

[Parla]

I her!

 

[-Hope-]

I her!

Me too!

 

[-Hope-]

Karen and I had another Disney Day today! Today we decided to do another movie (that, big surprise, didn't get watched). That's okay though, it was a great day and we had lots of fun activities to go with... Tangled!

In addition to our two girls Karen also brought Leslee, another good friend of the girls who will be going with Karen and family on their next trip to WDW.

In addition to the really cool bookmarks Karen made for decorations (pictured above) she also made paper 3-D Pasquals and a long yellow braid made from yarn. We also included Rapunzel's frying pan.

We had several fun activities for the girls. Karen printed out activity packets, we set up painting supplies (because Rapunzel is a painter in the movie), and we had supplies and directions for paper lanterns (like the birthday lanterns).

The girls had fun with the paintings...

I believe they worked on the packets for a bit as well. They forgot or just didn't get to the lanterns. Kya put one together after the other girls left though.

We met around lunch time so we had lots of yummy food for the girls as well. Angel HAIR pasta, breadstick BRAIDS and Rapunzel's tower for dessert.

OMG- that tower!! It all looked simple enough in the directions and I'd seen lots of successful examples so I didn't really give it much thought. There is a dowel in the middle holding everything together and helping it stay up straight- in theory anyway. It kept tipping over and the pinwheels were smushing down and crumbling. At one point it seemed like Karen finally had it all together when it tipped over and the whole thing came crashing down to the floor!!

Karen and I looked at each other, looked at the mess on the floor and then picked it up and decided to try again. Karen finally just decided to make it shorter so it would be more stable and that worked great! And the girls didn't seem to mind at all they were eating floor food.

While the girls ate and played Karen and I chatted about Disney and other stuff. We also planned our next day in a couple of weeks. I'm pretty excited about it and can hardly wait to share it with you guys!

 

[Twoboysnmygirl]

I'm still rollin every time I think of that tower crashing to the floor!

 

[-Hope-]

I thought I'd share a pic from WS...

I didn't get to take many pics in WS on our previous trip. We spent a lot of our time at Epcot in FW and our time in WS was often rushed and stressful (I was driven to tears on one occasion but that's another story). You can see from this pic that the few pictures I did get were rushed and not the best quality. This one is too dark, another that I didn't share is too bright and some just aren't as sharp as I'd like. There is so much great stuff in WS that kids (and my husband) don't appreciate so it will be great to be able to take my time with the pics.

And to be honest there might be a few other reasons I'm looking forward to WS without kids...

Any excuse to use that drunken pic of Karen.

 

[Twoboysnmygirl]

 

[3princesses+aprince]

Hi Hope! I didn't even know you started this PTR up! All right!

 

[-Hope-]

Hi Hope! I didn't even know you started this PTR up! All right!

Hi Pam! I'm so glad you found us! Karen knew I would be going through DIS withdrawals after having to cancel my trip so she suggested I just go ahead and start a PTR for our girls trip that is almost 2 years away! Anything to have an excuse to DIS right.

 

[Tink-erin-belle]

That is a great picture of DiVine, Hope! I want to get some pictures of her on my next trip too. I took a video of one of her performances and it was absolutely mesmerizing.

Karen, this is a beautiful picture:

I really like how it looks sort of creamy. I guess that's the best way for this novice to describe it Hope, I remember in your TR that you had some pictures that had a sort of dreamy quality to them too. What are you guys doing to get that creamy/dreamy look to your photos? Is it a filter?

The Tangled party also looked like a blast! Fantastic job as usual!

 

[Twoboysnmygirl]

Erin, the dreamy look is something done in post processing, with a program that I have to edit all my shots with. I shoot in RAW format, so all my pictures have to be edited and put in JPEG, sharpened, color corrected if needed, etc. Most photographers use some form of editing like Photoshop, I use Nikon's Capture NX2, which is similar.