For today’s post, we have a new Lightroom tutorial for you. Here it is! And here is the finished photo – As mentioned in the video, the photo was taken with the Canon EOS 5D Mark III and the Canon EF 50mm f/1.4 USM lens, both of which are available at Amazon. If you shop at Amazon, please click the links here on the site, as anything you purchase will help support the site! Thanks for watching!
Today’s post comes to you straight from the central Hub area at Disneyland. The central area of Disneyland is one of my favorite places on Earth. All the trees, benches, and beautiful flowers help add to the wonderful charm and nostalgia of Sleeping Beauty Castle. It has a much more intimate feel and mood than the very busy and relatively bare central Hub at the Magic Kingdom. It feels like there is just less concrete in the Disneyland version, and I like that. This shot is not one that jumps off of the page and makes you think, “Wow, this is an amazing composition!” I’m well aware of that. To be completely honest, I wasn’t going for anything revolutionary or creative. What I was aiming to capture is the feel of the central plaza, and to try to draw on the emotion I feel when standing in this area. From this area, Disneyland looks like a regular old park that you would happen to find in your local neighborhood, just with a castle sitting in the middle of it, and an Astro Orbitor off to the right hand side of the frame! From a compositional standpoint, this was also a shot that I purposefully took a little bit tighter due to the fact that there were no clouds in the sky that morning. The light on the castle was beautiful and the sky was blue, but without the clouds, the sky becomes a little uninteresting. By shooting a bit tighter [...]
Today’s photo is of the newest monorail wrapped to promote a movie, the Iron Manorail. Monorail Black was recently wrapped by Disney to promote the release of Iron Man 3, which hits theaters in May. I was glad to see that they went with Monorail Black as opposed to Red, which is what they wrapped for the promotion of the Avengers last year. These monorail wraps have come under fire from the Disney community ever since the Tronorail first hit to promote Tron: Legacy a few years back. The general consensus seems to be that the Monorail is a symbol of WDW and not just a place for advertising, much like a city bus. Even so, I think this one looks much nicer than the Avengers monorail. This one is a little tough to photograph, though. The main reason for that is because it is on the Magic Kingdom line, which in my opinion is much more difficult to shoot than the ones on the Epcot loop. But, due to contractual obligations, these Marvel wraps cannot run within a theme park, which is what the Epcot loop involves, so it is stuck servicing MK. I just don’t feel that the MK loop has as many compelling photo locations. Another reason that this is tricky is due to the lighting conditions. For example, the shot I posted was from a place where I thought that the angle was at least sort of cool with the monorail being nice and close, and [...]
When I started in photography, I was told to always keep the sun at my back for the best possible light on a subject especially during golden hour. However, recently I have spent a lot of time looking for ways to capture a shot looking into the sun. It’s a bit more difficult to do but if pulled off properly backlit photos can be much more interesting. On my recent Walt Disney World trip I had some time to wander around the Magic Kingdom at sunset. At first I tried a few shots with the sun at my back capturing Partners and Cinderella Castle bathed in warm golden sunlight. As the sun got lower I decided to walk to the other side of the castle and see what it looked like pointing into the sun. I found this location and loved what I saw. There are so many great elements from this location from the rocks, to the water leading to the castle and then of course, the sun peering through the tops of the trees. I loved the mood as that beautiful warm golden hour light seemed to outline the landscape. I wanted to capture the mood as best I could so I began experimenting. I stopped the lens down a bit to f/13 to create a nice burst of around the sun and then played with various shutter speeds and ISOs to get a balance between the very bright sun and sky and the darker regions in [...]
Today, we feature a true beacon for the showbiz elite, the Hollywood Tower Hotel. This photo is kind of a funny story. I drew my inspiration for the processing of the shot from the newly refreshed Disney park maps. On the cover of the map for the Studios, they feature a very dark and ominous Tower of Terror. Usually, I never try to duplicate what Disney does on most of their printed media, mainly because it comes from more of a marketing standpoint. I like having the artistic freedoms that come with not having to have something printed for millions of people to see, usually resulting in more bold colors and deeper blacks and more contrast than the typical brochure-style shots. But, after seeing the new park map today, I decided to edit one of my Tower of Terror shots in a similar fashion. I had this one from back in August, right after I first acquired the Olympus OM-D E-M5 and the Olympus 45mm f/1.8 Lens. It was a kind of cloudy summer day, and right as the sun started to go down and the lights flipped on at the Tower, I snapped away from over in between the Carthay Circle gift shop and the entrance to the Beauty and the Beast stage show. In Lightroom, I added more blacks than usual, and also made sure to pull the highlights way back to get nice detail in those ominous clouds. The photo may look a little dark on your monitor, [...]
Cory Disbrow, Ryan Pastorino & Tom Bricker host ISO5571 - A Disney Photography Podcast.