A little detour today away from the Disney parks and into Joshua Tree National Park. On my drive out to Disneyland last year we stopped off at numerous National Parks where I took tons of photos that have mostly sat unprocessed. I’ve been going through those and figured it was time to start mixing in some of the ones I’ve finished. This was taken near our camping spot at Arch Rock in the park at sunset. Enjoy.
Immediately after shooting Illuminations from behind Belle and the Beast I took this shot from the front. The unexpected side effect is the smoke from the fireworks was still drifting past and created this awesome atmosphere in the photo. Later photos taken in the same area after the smoke had cleared seamed almost boring in comparison. I kept the exposure low, which combined with the misty look in the air I thought created a great romantic mood, perfect for Belle and Beast. In conclusion, I wonder what Disney security would think about my own personal smoke generator in my camera bag – lol.
Our day at the Flower & Garden Festival this year was a very overcast day. While this gives you flat lighting it often means the backgrounds suck because the sky is an ugly grey. This meant I mostly stuck to my Nikon 70-200 2.8 (a lens I should use more anyway) to create tighter framings and compress the frame on some sort of interesting background. Here’s one of the Buzz Lightyear topiary against Mission Space with the grey sky mostly eliminated. The flat lighting from the overcast sky does look pretty great on Buzz I think. Enjoy.
This trip, the wife and I decided to do something we haven’t done in a very long time, spend an entire day at Animal Kingdom. It’s a park we have historically spent very little time in and as a result I have far fewer photos of it than any of the other parks despite it offering tons of great photo opportunities. While my wife decided to sit down and rest for a while I opted to pop my Rokinon 12mm fisheye on and go wander around the Tree of Life. With the sun beginning to set the leaves on the tree really popped with the golden light. Combined with a bit of golden light
This was on the short list of shots I had in mind for this trip. I always have a handful in mind that I want to get and then I just wing the rest. I knew at dusk the ramps would be roped off and therefore people free. I arrived a bit later than I wanted so the glow from the setting sun and the right had lost most of its color. Still the color of the sky is quite a pleasing tone. Enjoy.
I can’t take credit for this composition. I saw something similar done about a year ago by another photographer. (I couldn’t find the original to credit them, sorry!) I’ve had it in the back of my mind to try since then if I was there during the Flower and Garden festival. I also liked the lack of crowd for shooting from this vantage point. There was practically no one in this area once the fireworks began which makes for a nice personal experience and an even better shot. Enjoy!
After switching from DX to FX back when the Nikon D800 came out I abandoned my crop sensor fisheye lens and never looked back. Fast forward several years and I’ve been getting the itch to shoot fisheye shots again. The Rokinon 12mm was recommended to me by a few buddies so I dove back into the fish game this trip with that lens. I always thought the fisheye was especially fun around Spaceship Earth so here it is, my first full frame fisheye shot. Enjoy.
I rarely share more than 1 photo at a time but after going through an editing all these Winnie the Pooh shots from single ride through, I felt they needed to be shared all together. These were done with my Nikon 28 1.4 which I’ve talked about a little, but I simply can’t overstate how awesome I think this lens is for dark rides. To me, it’s the perfect focal length along with 1.4 and amazing sharpness and bokeh rendering. It is a bit on the pricey side at $2000 but well worth it if you want an absolutely amazing dark ride slaying lens that also works great as a walk around wide angle.
