You know I thought about possibly slipping Catalina in next June while we are down there waiting for Scotty to ride down for the AIDs ride. I need to look into it.
Michele -
Oh, that's true - June would be a good time! It probably wouldn't be too terribly hot yet. Well, a good start - whether you head to Avalon next year or some other year - is to order the
free Visitors Guide. It's basically a magazine (it used to be a small brochure in the old days), and it has lots of good info. The Visitors Bureau puts a new one out each year. You can also look at the online version, but I find that having something at my fingertips to flip through is nice!
Here's the link to order:
http://catalinaislandcacoc.weblinkconnect.com/cwt/External/WCPagesNEW/WCWebInput/WebInputPage.aspx
It can't hurt to order it, in any case. Even if you just order it and hang on to it for future reference, at least you'll have it handy.
Also, I don't know what my money situation will be next year or whether or not the Catalina Express will still be offering the free birthday boat ride (in which case I'd go again in July), but if there is
not going to be another year of free birthday boat rides, I am always up for visiting Catalina when other people go. The Express will probably not announce until March 2013 if the birthday promo is going to be extended again past April 2013, so I will know then if there is another birthday trip in the works for me. And if not, then I can go another time - like maybe
if you go! So keep me posted as your plans take shape, and if you decide to add in a jaunt over to Avalon to your agenda!
Thank you for the good tip Sherry. It has been a long time since I took a trip that has nothing to do with Disney. I believe it was back in 2005 when I went to Washington D.C. with my family. It was amazing to go to the monuments and see the Smithsonian's museums. I wasn't much of a photographer back then until I got a DSLR camera in 2008. I really wished I did have a DSLR camera back then so I can take a lot of pictures. The last few years, I have been using my DSLR camera for taking pictures of the Disney parks and family function. But now after taking more pics from different places and getting great info on the boards, I am more interested in picture taking then I ever been. I haven't done a long trip that doesn't involve Disney which I am so used to the last few years. Maybe I should go one day on a trip that is not Disney. But when I have been going to a lot of Disney parks the last few years which I enjoy a lot, it would be tough to go on a different trip that doesn't involve the Disney parks.
Great pictures from your trip. You really got a lot of pics of the flowers which Deej would like a lot.
Bret -
Thank you for the compliment! I took so many pictures, I didn't know how to narrow it down to just 25 for a highlight reel so I just kind of picked at random.
Hopefully Deej likes the flower photos - but I really take them for
me, because I like them!
And because flowers tend to sway in the breeze a lot (especially near the ocean), I was so happy with my camera that it managed to get a few clear, bright, non-blurry flower shots!
As I've said, I will snap flower pictures (among other things) when I am out walking around my neighborhood. If I see beautiful flowers on the way to the bank or the grocery store, I will get pictures!
But I tend to do this with the idea in mind that I may do a project at some point - like a calendar, a photo book, a collage, etc. Something like that. I'm always thinking in terms of what I might do with the pictures in the future, and how I can use them. So 90% of the flower pictures I take you guys don't see because there is no point in adding a bunch of flower pictures to a DLR TR if they aren't relevant to a DLR trip I took!
I have only sprinkled in a few here and there.
Pictures at the Smithsonian would have been awesome, I'm sure. You'll get back there again and take the photos you wish you'd taken. I know you will.
I think it's good to expand our horizons in photography, and occasionally stray from Disney. I know it's hard to do because we love Disney so much! If we truly want to be photographers, it's good to have a range of subjects to photograph and a handful of locations we like to visit (take KCmike, for example, and his visits to various other places as well as
Disneyland in the same trip). There's a whole world outside of Disney!
That doesn't mean that we all have to be traveling the world to get great photos, of course - although, who wouldn't want to travel the world if it were possible? I can easily find beauty and interesting subjects right outside my front door! Just take a walk around your neighborhood, or a neighboring city - when you really start to look at things closely, you see that there are pretty things everywhere and interesting people, interesting signs, interesting window displays, and details everywhere. They may not be 'Disney-caliber' details, but they are fascinating in a different way.
Earlier this year I spent an afternoon at the La Brea Tar Pits and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), just walking around the grounds, finding interesting things to take photos of - or trying to hone my skills a bit, I guess. Some photos come out as winners; some come out as clunkers, but the point is that I wanted to get out there and 'see' things beyond Disney and take pictures.
In Catalina/Avalon there is gorgeous, colorful, decorative tile work all over the place - in town, on fountains, on walls, on benches, up at the Wrigley Memorial, everywhere. Catalina is largely known for its 'tile art.' A great "quest" would be to go around town and hunt down the tile. That would make for some wonderful, vibrant photos. I didn't have time to do "Tile Quest" on this last trip, so I could only get
some tile pictures mixed in with everything else.
In any case, on one of these trips when you are going to be at DLR for a few days, just think about cutting off one of those days and instead heading over to Avalon, and then when you are done with Avalon at night you can either head right back to DLR or head home. You can catch the boat from Long Beach (I don't recommend taking the boats out of Newport Beach because the schedules are way too limited), and then it's 20 or 25 minutes back to Anaheim from Long Beach. So that way you don't have to eliminate Disney from the mix, but you can instead just add in another element/destination to your trip! Something like the Semi-Sub tour would be great for getting some pictures of fish, and the golf cart is great for getting photos of scenic views up in the hills.
Try ordering one of the free Visitors Guides that I gave Michele the link for above ^^ and thumb through it. See if anything appeals to you!
I second Bret's post. Your beautiful pictures make me want to visit Catalina Island. I think we'd have to do it in conjunction with a Disney trip. Like Bret we think of other destinations but then say to ourselves 'we have so much fun at Disney do we really want to cheat on the mouse?'
I'm trying to talk my family into a DL vacation next summer (although I'd love to go back to WDW for Star Wars Weekend too) that would combine a park visit, the
D23 convention, and perhaps a trip down to San Diego or now Catilina Island. Can I admit I have no idea where Catilina Island is??
On my bucket list is a digital photography class. I'd love to be able to get pictures at night like Bret and wonderful artsy pics like you get Sherry.
Thanks for brightening my day!
TK
TK -
Thank you for the very nice compliment.
I'm glad you liked the photos. Once I figure out where exactly I am posting the other pictures I took (in another TR or just a separate photo thread) I will let you know.
I think that's the best way to do it at first, if you visit Avalon - make it an add-on to an existing Disney trip! No need to replace Disney and cheat on Disney with somewhere else. Just kind of add it in to the repertoire as a day trip. Since Long Beach is only about 20-25 minutes from Anaheim (with no traffic, that is), it won't take long to get to the Catalina Express. You can hop over to Avalon for a day, rent a golf cart, maybe do a tour or two, that kind of thing. And then when you're done, go back to Anaheim or head home. This way, when you start out with a day trip you can get a sense of whether it is a place you and the family would want to visit again, in the future, for a longer stretch of time - like an extended weekend - or if it is destined to just be a day trip in the TK family! My friends and I started out with a day trip and then ended up making longer visits, but everyone is different.
The
Visitors Guide is a good place to start for a pictorial overview, but if you are not going to be staying in a hotel in Avalon then you don't have to do too much planning in advance. It's good to book your boat time a few weeks or a month in advance, and that's about it.
As for where Catalina is located, there's an old, hokey song about Catalina, "26 miles across the sea...Santa Catalina is waiting for me..." It's not really 26 miles, though. It's more like 22 miles!
If you take the Catalina Express out of Long Beach - which is what I recommend - it takes about one hour. Sometimes under an hour, and sometimes slightly over an hour, if it's windy. My nighttime boat ride the other night seemed to go by extremely fast, wind and all.
While I love my little point & shoot camera, the DSLR cameras are definitely the best for nighttime shots - no question there - and for shots of fast-moving objects. That's why Bret is able to rock those great fireworks shots! In the end, it really comes down to getting photos of things you
love. If you love the subjects you take photos of - whatever those may be - then it will translate in the photos. No matter what the equipment is that is used (DSLR or P&S), if the subject is something you love it will come across to other people.
TK, the pictures you posted yesterday in the "light fixture thread" are amazing! Your NOS/HMH pictures were so nice and colorful - and clear! Much better than my NOS photos, that's for sure!
Going to DLR and WDW the last few years is fun and exciting to see something new (seasons, rides, shows, etc.). It would be nice to try a different trip once in awhile. But I am just too much into the Disney parks that I just can't enjoy a trip that is not Disney.
You should try to convince your family to go back to DL next summer TK. Not only with Cars Land and Buena Vista Street. There is also the possibility that you should go to the D23 Expo next year in August. That event is so much fun to go to and see the screenings, props, Disney Legends, celebrities, etc. Also a great place to go to the Catalina Islands while you are there in SoCal.
Thank you TK. My nighttime pics are alright since some of them are blurry at night with low light. I did tell you on my PTR that I got a new lens which should help me get better pics at night. Sherry has a good eye for pics that is very interesting to look at.
Bret -
Thank you again for the compliment.
Yes, you can! You can enjoy a trip that is not Disney!
You can do it! You can add on another destination to the beginning or end of one of your Disney trips. Your DA would probably like Catalina too!
Your nighttime pictures are always really good anyway (everyone has a random blurry picture here and there, so that's nothing to worry about), but I think it will be exciting to see how your nighttime photos evolve over time with the new lens! I can't wait to see those nighttime Main Street at Christmas time pictures that I know you will take, with all of the lights and snow and all of that!
Just beautiful. You definitely got some postcard or visitor's guide-worthy shots on your trip. Thank you so much for sharing them!
I'm glad you ordered it. It can't hurt to order it (since it's free), it's a nice book/magazine to thumb through, and it may be something that can be added in to the repertoire on one of your multi-day SoCal trips. Once Catalina Express announces whether or not they plan to extend the birthday offer for a 3rd year (past April of 2013), then I'll know if I am destined to do another July birthday trip again, or if I can go earlier than than (like in June).
