I know, I know

Ok. So I know that it has been a while since I have posted anything on this. But in my defense, it has been BUSY down here. I spent most of June and July working at least 10-12 hours a day. And this is at DAK the park that usually has the shortest hours. Not in the summer though, we are almost on par with the rest of the parks. The only difference is we close at 8pm so the animals can get a good nights rest before starting up again the next day.

That and I don't really have alot of photos to share right now. Going hand in hand with working alot is the complete lack of time to go out and shoot whatever I choose to shoot. I am actually heading into the park today for the first time in what seems like forever. Don't know where I am going but I am going. I think I may head to Magic Kingdom and then to EPCOT. Beyond that who knows. I have stuff that needs to be taken care of around the apartment but the call of the Mouse is there and I really really think I am going to listen to it today. So maybe later I will have some awesome stuff to share.

Here is to wishful thinking.

Sharon

I would love to visit somewhere with this awesome waterfall. Oh wait, I do. I take pictures of this all the time at work.

Taken June 21, 2011. Disney's Animal Kingdom, Kilimanjaro Safari Exit

My nephew

I would like to introduce everyone to my nephew Cameron.





Four Generations, my sister, my grandmother, my nephew and my mom


He wasn't looking forward to getting his picture taken


After his first bath

Hi from Illinois

Well I am sitting in the Bloomington airport awaiting my airplane to take me home.

I got to come home for a week to see my little sister and her new son Cameron. Was an interesting week. Though I am very excited to get home and sleep in my own bed and not hear a newborn's cry in my sleep. Though I probably will just because my luck is awesome like that. Tomorrow it is back to work for a 10 hour shift. I am excited about it.....I think. lol We are starting to get back into busy season so my hours will probably pick up soon.

Chris is going back to working with government here soon and he will be leaving Disney. It sucks on some levels but on the majority of them it is awesome, just for the simple fact that he is going to be back to doing what he really loves which is working on computers so I can't complain to loudly. As long as he is happy I am happy. =)

That is all for now folks. I will be posting some new pictures in the coming week once I get them edited. They are going to be from my trip home of my nephew and my family. Should be interesting to see how the turned out.

Later
sharon


My sister and I at Hollywood Studios.

Star Wars Weekends!

Star Wars Weekends have once again arrived at Hollywood Studios. I was lucky enough to have a day off and was able to go and enjoy some of the festivities. Here are the pictures that came out of it.


Ashley Eckstein - Voice of Ahsoka Tano in Star Wars: The Clone Wars
Dave Filoni - Supervising Director of Star Wars: The Clone Wars
James Arnold Taylor - Voice of Obi-Wan Kanobi in Star Wars: The Clone Wars
Anthony Daniels - The ONLY actor to appear in all 6 Star Wars movies, Star Wars: The Clone Wars and Voice Overs in Star Tours
Daniel Logan - Young Boba Fett - Star Wars Episode II and Star Wars: The Clone Wars



Boba Fett



Mickey's Droid



Donald Duck as a Stormtropper



Jedi Mickey


Just awesomeness

Training

So I have gotten both my night shot and character training done. :-D Both of these take place at EPCOT so I got to work in a new park for a few days. Night shots are pretty much self explanatory. We take pictures of the Icons at night. For these we get to use a tripod, exciting. Except at DAK we very rarely shoot at night. In fact the other night when I did shoot at night I completely forgot to change some of my settings. Oopsie!

But character traininf was alot more fun and where I probably feel the most comfortable. Simply for the fact that I am very used to being around the characters and taking pictures of them. I have only had 5 years of practicing that.

I have had two shifts so far where I have gotten to hang out with Pooh and Eeyore and that was fun. I have definitely seen the amount of photos that I take go up exponentially. And my poor arms can barely keep up.

But that is all for now guys. I will post pics later from my laptop.

Sharon

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)