Sunset behind BTMRR from Tom Sawyer Island?

[Experiment_626]

Finally headed back to WDW this coming week after more than a year away. One shot I've wanted to get for a long time is as described in the thread title. I know the story is that the rafts stop running at sunset, but can you stay on the island long enough to get sunset light behind the mountain, even if you can't stay until the last light has faded? You can certainly set up near the mountain (off the island, I mean) and shoot with a UWA, but I'd like to get the water in the foreground if possible.

Scott

 

[wbeem]

You can ask, but I doubt it under normal circumstances. That brings me back to "You can ask." It may also depend upon who you ask.

There have been times when I've asked for something that would make my visit special and someone made it happen for me - things that I never expected to get approved.


Other times, I asked for something so simple and have seen it done for others, yet was shot down before I could get the words out of my mouth. One example is inside Tower of Terror. I wanted to step over the rope to get a shot of that little living room scene.

Here's the shot from Trey Ratcliff. Click through to read his notes about getting beyond the velvet rope.


The Fireplace in the Tower of Terror by Stuck in Customs, on Flickr

Sometimes it can happen. You just gotta keep asking until you find the right person. If someone says "no", ask them who would be able to approve such a thing. Can't hurt.

 

[Experiment_626]

Thanks for the advice, William. A good plan, and one I have used from time to time with success, such as when I wanted to get some shots from the section of Tomorrowland Terrace that was roped-off for the dessert party (it was still daylight at the time).

Just got back early this morning and I never got the opportunity to try what I wanted anyway. Yesterday was the only really good sunset during the time we were gone, and by the point we were heading back up the turnpike. There was a day or two that would have been okay, but my family has a knack for squeezing in "just one more ride," during which the best light passes. I got some shots of the Tangled tower with fading blue light, and tried to get over to BTMRR for the same but fumbled around too long and missed it. Dang it.

It turned out to be a light trip on the kind of photos I really wanted to make, though I may have gotten some good shots from Illuminations. Went up to the second floor balcony of the restaurant in Japan for the first time, expecting it to be crowded with photographers, but there were only a couple there. Could have been the rain, and there was wind that rose up exactly at nine o'clock and delayed the start of the show for several minutes, but it was the sparsest crowd for the show I've ever seen. There were no more than a handful of people around the Torii gate and lots of open space along the railing around the lagoon.

It was a bizarre experience to walk past the Mad Tea Party and into a part of the Magic Kingdom that was almost totally unfamiliar, after more than 15 years of feeling as if I knew every square inch of the place. Storybook Circus was very cool, and I could sort-of place things from how it used to be, but once we walked behind the under-construction Mine Train, it was as if we'd stepped into the Twilight Zone. We also saw Lights, Motors, Action for the first time and I tried some panning shots; haven't yet determined whether I had any success. Hard to shoot a show such as that without some knowledge of where the vehicles were going from one moment to the next.

I came away from the trip with an Annual Pass, while the rest of the family got the FL-resident-only Weekday Seasonal Passes. Hope this will translate into a solo photography trip for me again within the next 12 months.

SSB