Survived

So I survived the first week of being on my own without a trainer!! Yay!!!

I had a bunch of shots that I liked, a few that I loved and some that could be better. But I know that will come with time. I wish that I could get my hands on a couple of them though just to keep just cuz that they were that cool.

But anyways I am heading to bed. I have DAKlimation in the morning which is my orientation to the park, as though I have never been there before. Should be fun.

Have a wonderful week everybody (who doesn't read this)

Sharon

Out of my camera not my work one. Looks pretty good eh?

Training and first few days

Well I survived my training. Yay!!


The first day of training was more of a welcome to Photopass class. It contained alot of stuff I knew and alot of stuff that I didn't. All in all it was interesting. The second half of the day was spent learning more about the cameras. =) Pretty much how to set them up for your work day, making sure the settings are right and how to work the PDA. Then we went outside to do some practice of focus locking and moving a fire hydrant named Freddie around in our picture. That was an interesting experience, in some of my pictures he moved, in some of them not so much. lol

Day two consisted of a recap of Day one and learning about how to shoot our Icons in each of the four parks. (With more intensive training coming on Day three in my home park) For lunch and the second half of our class we went to Hollywood Studios and practiced shooting each other. (That sounds so good I know) We also learned more about how to deal with younger kids that don't wanna look at us. Afterwards we got to go back to Maingate and look at our photos and critique them. Mostly what I took away from the critique was don't be afraid of the ZOOM. Which came into play on my first day out of training. But I will explain that later.

Day three....yea. Got a walking tour of the park to see all of the locations that we shoot, both Icon and Character. I cannot wait for my character training so I can go back to working with my characters soon. =) I do miss them. Then I got some practice shooting my trainer. Namely learning how to make the Tree of Life bigger/smaller and doing the same with guest. Yay for forced perspectives. Sometimes I think I have gotten the hang of this sometimes not so much. But it will come with time. For the last hour or so of my shift I actually got to take pictures of real guests! Again, was told don't be afraid of the ZOOM!

My first day out without my trainer actually went really really well I think. I started out doing tripod shots which aren't too bad. Set the tripod up and go. So pretty much make sure the Tree is where you want it and then position the guests around said Tree. Easy right? Nope. Not at all. Some people just don't wanna move or they think that standing in a spot where the camera isn't angled is going to work. Makes life interesting to say the least. After my break I went back to the bridge but I was just shooting holding the camera. I actually think I like that better. I can move around a lot more and I can actually frame stuff a little bit better I think. Today though I wasn't afraid of the ZOOM. In actuality I was a little bit ZOOM happy. I need to be careful that I don't cut people's elbows off. Apparently they enjoy keeping them. Who knew? But I was able to have a trainer look trough my photos and he said they were good, gave me a few more pointers (leave elbows in the picture) and said to keep up the good work.

So I am starting to feel pretty confident now. Just need to keep practicing. I have night shot and view training next Friday at EPCOT and my DAKlimation (orientation to Disney's Animal Kingdom) on Sunday with two regular shifts in between. Should be fun. Soon I will have some new photos to start posting on here as well as I get back into taking photos in the parks. Here's to hoping crowds start going down soon.

sharon

My new home (for now)

Done!!

So I am completely done with the World of Disney. At least done being scheduled there. If shifts pop up on the Hub and I can take them I probably will just to be able to go back and see people. But other than that I will only be there to go shopping!

Wednesday I have to take a class called Welcome to Entertainment. Which should be interesting seeing as how I was part of Entertainment for 4.5 years. So we will see how that goes. Following that I have 3 days of Photopass training and then its out into the park I go. I am already scheduled four days next week.

But nothing else major going on. Hope everyone had a wonderful weekend.

sharon

Thinking

So today while I was at work I had a lady who is also a cast member at World of Disney come up and ask me to call about a kids dress in a certain size. I went ahead and called cuz I figured since she worked here she had already check the rack for it and thats why she was asking. Turns out she was too damn lazy to look on the fixture. I walked over and found five. So I walked it over and said "here you go, there were quite a few down here already." She said NOTHING to me, not even a thank-you for calling upstairs in the first place. So now I am in a pissed off because a fellow cast member cannot even be bothered to be nice and I too many of the dress and have to send thrm back upstairs.

It's things like this that make me so damn happy I am going to Photopass and get way from the retail aspect of things for a bit.

On another note though I only have 3 more shifts before I head back to the parks. One of them is a closing shift and the other two I am done by 11:45 at the latest! So that mrans I actually get to see my husband. Holy crap!!!

Have a wonderful rest of the week.

Sharon

Photopass

So as I was doing laundry this evening I came to the realization that I am no longer a College Programmer or a Character Attendant and that it was time to change the direction of this blog.

I found out a week ago that I am transferring to Photopass and Disney's Animal Kingdom as of this coming Sunday. So I think that is where my blog is headed. My learning experiences both with the Photopass cameras and with my own camera.

2 years ago I purchased my first SLR camera and I have sorta messed around with it attempting to learn the settings. So now I have an actual reason to learn, plus I will be taught some. So I will share my stories and even more of my pictures.

This should be an interesting journey.

Hope everyone has a magical day.

Sharon

Boo from Block Party Bash, edited in Photoshop