This week’s Throwback Thursday takes us back to Toontown. Given my love for coffee, I had to take a picture of this one time as we walked through. Our next trip will be the first time back since the addition of Starbucks in the parks. While I’d like to get a great cup of…
This week’s Throwback Thursday takes us back to Mickey’s House, formerly in Disney’s Magic Kingdom. While I like the new Fantasyland additions, I miss the park areas that had to be removed. We really enjoyed walking through Mickey’s House. Details like this, showing Mickey, Donald, and Goofy during construction, added depth to the attraction, and…
As you may have read (I hope!), my contribution specialties here at The Disney Driven Life revolve around photography and park/resort audio. If you’ve read these posts, you know I’m a big proponent of soaking in all the details, both visual and audio, at the Disney parks and resorts. When it comes to photographs,…
Just thought I’d post this at the last minute. I took this outside the other night, no real edits to the photo. As you can see, my Donald Duck model from Mickey’s “Really Swell” Brand coffee cup line is in the foreground. What I was trying to do was capture some blurred Christmas lights…
If you’ve visited the Disney parks enough, you’ve probably been picked to serve as a temporary Cast Member. I was in the movie-water scene in the Backlot Tour a couple of times, and getting 1,000+ gallons of water dumped on you is a lot of fun. But my favorite stint as a temporary Cast…
This week’s Throwback Thursday takes us back not too long ago, before wi-fi throughout the park, before widespread use of smart phones and apps to plan our day at the parks. How did we ever manage? After all, Disney’s Animal Kingdom is a pretty big park, and as you can see, we put our faith…
Have you ever taken a look at your Disney Dark Ride photos, or park/resort photos you took at night or in low light, and noticed grainy dots in your photo? What you’re seeing is image noise – these little unwanted off color dots that you don’t want. These little dots are the visual equivalent…
This week’s Throwback Thursday photo is from the old Test Track queue. In some ways the old queue was pretty neat, details like this showed design considerations for cars and how tests were conducted. The engineer in me approved. Unfortunately, not too many people get excited by things that engineers appreciate, which really is a…
This week’s Throwback Thursday takes us back to Catastrophe Canyon. I have to say I miss the Backlot Tour. I thought it was pretty neat to see how the whole sequence got set up, the action happened, and then everything moved back to the “before” position. All the effects were pretty impressive. I’m really excited…
This week’s Throwback Thursday takes us back to Playhouse Disney. Bear in the Big Blue House was a big hit back then. I doubt I’m the only one who ever sings “What’s in the mail today?” while walking to the mailbox – even after all these years. At times I got sick of the…
Many Disney fans try to find (or insert!) some Disney into their every day lives. One neat way is to look for random things that happen to form a Hidden Mickey or other Disney reminders. And it keeps you sharp for spotting Hidden Mickeys in the parks and resorts. In this case, I…
Regardless of skill level, you’ll hear photographers talk about the number of overall pictures it takes to get a few good shots. They’ll go to a location, fire off hundreds of shots, and go back home or to their studio to begin post processing. They’ll eliminate many of the shots right away, with no…
You may have seen my previous Photo Bucket List posts for the four Walt Disney World parks (and one resort!), and I’ll have some more lists to come, but I thought I’d ask a question in this post: What attraction, park location, or resort spot is most difficult for you to photograph? And I’ll…
This photo shows the EPCOT landmark, Spaceship Earth, with the Wand that was added in 2000. The wand was removed in 2007. Like the Sorcerer’s Hat at Hollywood Studios, the Wand had some fans, but was also unpopular with others. This shot is from our trip in 2004, and I kind of got…
This is kind of a Throwback photo – and in a way it’s not, since this photo is from an attraction that still resides at the Magic Kingdom. You probably know this photo is from an early scene in The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh attraction at Magic Kingdom. It’s a picture of…
Continuing with the Photo Bucket List mini-series, I thought I’d move from the parks and into the resorts. As I’m sure you know, Walt Disney World Imagineers carefully designed and constructed the layout and theming for each resort. So, whether it’s the feel of staying in a different part of the world, such as…
The American Idol Experience was a polarizing attraction. Now that it’s closed, I think I’ll miss it, but am also excited to see what will happen in the park over the next few years. As it turns out, there was at least one surprise on stage, regardless of how the performances were: Do you…
I miss the nostalgic, cartoon like setting in this part of the park, but I really like the expansion. The Miss Daisy added to the sense that park guests could step into a cartoon world. What did you think of Mickey’s Toontown & Miss Daisy? Do you have a Throwback Thursday photo you would like to…
This post covers my Disney’s Animal Kingdom Photo Bucket List, which goes along with my posts about Magic Kingdom, EPCOT, and Hollywood Studios lists. Like my list for Hollywood Studios, this list (for now) is pretty short and isn’t loaded with shots that’ll take a lot of time or technical skill to complete. In some ways,…
If you read my posts outlining my Magic Kingdom and EPCOT Photo Bucket Lists, you know I’m working on getting my Disney photography act together, so I’ve made lists of the shots I want to get. My Hollywood Studios list is shorter than my Magic Kingdom and EPCOT lists, and I expect will be…
