Photo of the Week - No Sitting...Unless You Are a Cat

One of the most famous tourist locations in Key West is the Ernest Hemingway house.  You can take a tour of the house for a nominal fee.  One of the highlights of the tour, is the cats.  Hemingway loved cats.  He had a slew of the.  Down to this day, the ancestors of Hemingway's cats live at the house.  You can find them all over the place.

If you ever end up down in Key West, make sure to check out the Hemingway House.

Photo of the Week: Foggy New Orleans

Due to it's location in the Mississippi Delta, New Orleans can experience some extremely thick fog, at times.  This was the case when our ship was arriving, early in the morning.

The fog level in this photo is low compared to what it was just a few minutes earlier.   The fog was also low in elevation.  The tops of some of the buildings were above the fog.

If you want to see what it was really like, I captured a video of the arrival.  You can see it here.  

Photo of the Week: Gulf of Mexico Sunset

I know, calling this a "photo of the week" is a little bit of a joke.  I haven't posted a photo of the week in a very long time.

Anyways,  here is a photo I captured while at sea in the Gulf of Mexico.  I thought this would be a nice warm photo for everyone who is stuck in the middle of a cold winter.

Slacking

I've been slacking really bad in regards to this blog.  I am going to be giving it more attention in the next few months since Around the World has made it to the editing stage.  I won't be starting Imagineered Death until Around the World has been released so that gives me a little time.

Here are a few things and changes coming to the blog:
1 - Review of the Crystal Caves in Bermuda

2 - Overall review of Royal Caribbean.

3 - Photo of the Week will no longer focus on Disney.  The main reason for this is simple.  I haven't been to Disney in years and have no plans to return.

4 - This change already happened but, this blog is now focused on travel.  It's secondary focus is Disney in general followed by Disney World.

5 - Some Vegas stuff will start showing up in about a month.  I know there will be a review of Aureole.  There might be a few other tidbits too.  Don't expect too much.  I hate Vegas.  I don't go there for pleasure.

6 - Re-release of World Killer.  It's 55% of the way through a massive grammar overhaul. It will also have a slightly different cover.

7 - Re-release of Twisted Disney. Massive grammar overhaul and a very different cover.

8 - Re-release of CMDTA's Pictorial Guide to Disney World.  Massive grammar overhaul.

9 - Release of Around the World.

10 - Imagineered Death kickoff.

11 - The announcement of the fourth and final book in the DW mysteries.

That's it for now.  I'm hoping World Killer is ready for re-release by the end of the month.  It all depends on my editor.

Photo of the Week: Flower and Graden Photo Tips

The 2013 Epcot Flower and Garden festival is quickly approaching.  I thought I'd take the time to pull out a decent garden / flower photo.

If you are going this year there are two general rules to follow when filming gardens or flowers.  If it's a garden you want to do a panoramic or landscape shot that includes some of the surrounding area. This gives life to the  photo and makes it pop.

If you are filming a flower you generally want to zoom in or get as close as possible and set your aperture as low as you can go.  An f-stop of 3.5 or smaller is best.  This will put the flower in focus and blur out everything else.  This really draws attention to the single flower in a garden it also draws out it's details. 

Photo of the Week - View From the Top

Pictures of the castle are easy to find.  Almost everyone who has been to the Magic Kingdom has one.  The most common are from Main Street USA followed by the view from the path to Fantasy Land.  Some of the less common are taken from the bridge to Tomorrow Land or the rose garden.

A nice view that not many people take advantage of is the backside of the castle. There is some nice windows on that side that give it a very different look. 

This view can be captured from the very top of the Contemporary.  You need to get into the California Grill to get on this balcony.  There might also be a way by walking up the external stairs on the far side of the Contemporary but I've never tried that approach.

If you are ever at the California Grill take the time to check out this view of the Magic Kingdom.  It truly is unique. 

Photo of the Week - Indiana Jones Stunt

The Indiana Jones Stunt Spectacular has been around since DHS opened.  It's still one of the best shows in DHS.  There is something timeless about Indiana Jones that has kept it from getting stale over the years.  Granted if you went to DHS more than a couple times a year you might not see the show each time but once or twice a year is still fun.

Photo of the Week - Stinking Holiday Decorations!

Most people like the holidays.  I don't!  This would have been a great photo but the holiday decorations got in the way.  Granted most of the time the decorations don't get in the way.  However at the Magic Kingdom they certainly do.  If you want to avoid this you need to get really close to Cinderella's Castle or leave Main Street entirely. 

Photo of the Week: The Haunted Mansion

The Haunted Mansion is creepy during the day.  At night it can become downright sinister.   The main reason for this is the lighting.

Did you ever notice that at night they light up the mansion to have eyes and a mouth?  Look close and you will see it. 

Another cool effect happens under two settings. 1st - put your camera on a tripod (or a trash can) and set your exposure to at least one second.  This causes people to blur and look like ghosts.

The other setting you can use is a double exposure.  If your camera has this feature it will take two fast exposures and combine them on the same frame. This will create see through people.  It's a really fun effect.

The example above is a timed exposure.

The final fun fact about this photo is the fact it was taken in color.  When you take it in color you can convert it after the fact and normally use multiple filters.   Black and white photos actually have different color filters.  In the case above I used a red filter.  A red black and white filter often gives the photo a more sinister, darker look.

Photo of the Week: Sunset Over Bay Lake

If you want to snag this photo you have to go to the of the Contemporary.  Off of the California Grill there is a nice outdoor patio where you can capture this view.

There is one other key aspect to photo is exposure.  This is not a normal exposure.  In a normal exposure the Grand Floridian would be almost completely darkened out by the light coming from the sun.  This is actually an HDR shot.  This is a case where you can hardly tell this is an HDR shot. Most of the times HDR shots look unnatural but in this case it really helps to match what you would naturally see.

Photo of the Week: Where Am I?

Do you know where this photo is from?

If you are a fan of the parks you can figure it out through a process of elimination.   I'll give you a few hints.

1 - You can see this attraction from two different parks.

2 - This statue can be found in the queue of the attraction.

3 - The color of the building is the same shade of red that you see directly behind the statue.

4 - This statue is found about half way through the queue.

5 - The attraction is in Disney Hollywood Studios.

6 - The attraction is at the end of Sunset Blvd.

If you haven't figured it out already this statue can be found in the queue of the Tower of Terror.  It's on the left hand side as you get close to the building.

Photo of the Week: Blow Up the Red Cross

For a second you'd think this was an actual movie shoot except for one thing... 

Back in the day Indiana Jones used to fight the Nazi's.  Did you know he switched to the Red Cross?  I know this isn't really the Red Cross emblem but it's much closer to that than the swastika that use to be on the plane they blew up.  

Was it really a bad thing to blow up a plane with a swastika on it?  I think that would be the opposite of offensive...unless you are a Nazi...and if you are no one cares if you're offended.

Photo of the Week: Run Indy Run!

Some people complain that the Indiana Jones Stunt Spectacular is outdated.  To that I say :)~.

Indiana Jones has become a classic. 

This is a decent photo from the beginning of the show.  The key to capturing this photo is turning your shutter speed down to 250 or lower.  If it's higher you won't get the blurring effect.  Most of the time you want to avoid blur at all costs.  In this case you want the blur.

Why would you want blur? In this case it actually adds a dynamic to the photo.  The blur reflects the motion.  Without the blur this photo would just be another still shot.  With the blur it's an action shot.

Photo of the Week: France During Food and Wine

1. This photo was created by HDR processing.  What HDR does well is it makes the light in a picture pop.  In a case like this it almost gives the photo a Thomas Kinkade picture. 

2. Look at the crowd here.  This was taken in October - a slow time of year.  However, it was taken during the Food and Wine Festival on a weekend.  That is a brutal mix.  The result is a 9 out of 10 on the Touring Plans crowd calendar.  This is what a that kind of crowd looks like.

Photo of the Week: Fireworks Meets the Electric Water Pageant at the Polynesian

This photo was taken over at the Polynesian.  You truly get a new perspective over there.  If you have the time you should try to see the Magic Kingdom fireworks from Polynesian and from the top of the Contemporary.  In both cases it's almost like seeing a whole new show.

For the photo geeks: The octopus is a little blurry thanks to the time delayed shutter but the fireworks came out great. I switched to the in camera dynamic color mode. That comes in hand for fireworks shots.  The main mode I used is shutter priority which means I told the camera how long to expose each shot but that mode lets the camera pick what aperture to use.

Photo of the Week - Illuminations

Fireworks photos are fun.  They are also are annoying at times.  This photo is an example of when you capture most of the things you wanted to.  When it comes to fireworks follow this general rule - setup your camera and then shoot almost non-stop.  You'll get about five to ten good shots and about a hundred that are just average or bad.

I won't now recommend trying to time fireworks shots.  That can be insanely frustrating.

Photo of the Week - Star Burst

Capturing a photo like this isn't as hard as it seems.  You just need to play around with the settings on your camera.  Just follow these tips:

1 - If you camera has different "film" modes change it to the "vivid" setting.  It may be called something else but you basically want the very colorful mode.

2 - Use a tripod or flat surface.  In Disney a trashcan is normally works well.

3 - Put the camera into shutter priority sometimes labeled by an "S" on the dial.  This mode lets you tell the camera how long to keep the shutter open for each photo.

4 - Set the shutter speed to one second.

5 - Forget steps 1, 3, and 4 and just put your camera in fireworks mode.  It will do something very similar.

What following the steps above or using the fireworks mode does is cause the streaks you see.  You can get some really fun effects when you use these settings on fireworks.

What this does is captured the streaks you see.

Photo of the Week - Festival of the Lion King

The Festival of the Lion King is easily one of the best shows in Disney World.  Most Disney shows are people just singing and dancing.  The Lion King show has acrobats, fire jugglers, and stilt walkers. 

If you want to take pictures of this show there are some rules you need to follow.   First turn your flash off.  Next put your camera in the "S" mode if you have it.  When you do that a little number should show up.  Set that number between 50 an 125.  Stay as still as possible. 

You have to do this because a flash doesn't do any good with a show like this.  Even if you turn it off your camera can't figure out what to do with lighting like this.  It sees a lot of dark with a little like so it tries create a long exposure.  This causes blur and the bright parts of photo to be far too bright.

Setting your camera to "S" you are telling the camera how long to expose the shot.  This still might not work because your camera might compensate for the shorter exposure.  If that's the case you'll need to change your mode to "M" and also set your aperture to five or six.

Photo of the Week: Cat Nap

There is nothing like kicking back on a warm afternoon and taking a little nap.  This is every important when you weigh over five hundred pounds and have to strut your stuff in front of thousands of tourists everyday.  The only problem is there just isn't anywhere private to curl up thanks to those pesky Imagineers.

Photos of the Week: Where Did I Put My Blanket?

If you think he looks like he can't remember where he put something you just might be right.  The morning this photo was taken was rather cool.  He and his buddies just wanted to warm up.

There that's better.  He wasn't the only Gorilla looking form his blanket.  Another one made a bed out of his.