I had a hard-edged rule that I am now considering breaking. Who am I kidding? I’m gonna break it for sure.

Now that Ethan is eight, we’ve been able to take him to Disneyworld a few times. Isabella is three and she has never been. I had a rule that it is silly to take kids on vacation before they are five, since you really can’t form long-term memories before that age. Yes yes, I know… Some people disagree with this. Like my wife. She says it is not good that there will be a missing child from our family vacation photographs, no matter how good I am at photoshopping Isabella’s head on a stunt-body. I try to offer the counterargument that a sub-five-year-old can have the same quantifiable amount of fun (within an acceptable margin of error) while at home with Disney movies. This, then, is thrown back in my face with my three-year-old having a dangerous fascination with Cinderella’s castle. She can hardly believe that it is a real place.

So now we are going to take her to Disneyworld. Not for her, but for us. Well, also for her. Okay it’s kind of for all of us. Rule broken.

If there is one thing that is almost as cool as being deep in the Himalayas, then it’s being at Disneyworld after dark near the Expedition Everest ride. This is probably one of my favorite rollercoasters, and I endeavored to stay here late one night to try to grab the moon in the right spot. The whole area is riddled with excellent little Buddhist offering temples, where you can submit fruits of offering in exchange for the blessing of not tossing your lunch right before the Yeti takes a swipe at your runaway train.

I also got a very nice Twitter message yesterday from a dad who was excited that his kids were getting him my Textures Tutorial for father’s day. I thought that was kind of cool and I was flattered! Of course, that means he’s going to have to use the techniques to make some memorable photos of his family… This is something that I always hear too… that I don’t take enough photos of the family, but I do I do! But I don’t think that the grandparents can ever be happy unless I have a webcam on them 24 hours a day like a non-stop grandchild Truman show.

I tried to give this one a very Twilight Zone feel to it. The whole ride at Disney World is filled with Rod Serlingesque treatments, so I thought it would be a fitting adjustment.

This ride is pretty freaky, and I totally recommend it!

Imperial Walkers are some of the coolest sci-fi creations ever. I heard Lucas got the idea from looking at those giant seaside cranes in the San Francisco bay. If you ever cross the Oakland Bay Bridge, you can see the huge monstrous ironworks marching into the distance.

I would love to go be on a movie set to take photos. Why hasn’t anyone invited me to do this? I don’t know… But if there is an awesome movie being made somewhere with really interesting visuals, I hope someone enterprising can get me onto the set! I’ll do my best to take some really memorable shots. It’s too late for me to get on the Star Wars set, sadly. Besides, I was only 6 when the first one came out, and I didn’t know that much about cameras… just light sabers.

This was always one of my favorite rides from Disney World. It was fun to get a chance to take my son there so he could experience the terror of being on a runaway mine train on his own.

I think my other favorite ride was Space Mountain. There were some really great ideas for shots I had inside there, but it’s kinda tough to jump off the roller coaster to get the perfect vantage. Since I do roam around the various parks with all my equipment, getting my tripod into a roller coaster is always kinda tough. I would leave it there with a 16-year-old who pushes the green flashy button to start the ride, but, most of the time at Disney, the exit is a mile away from entrance. So, I usually collapse the thing and put it under my feet. The negative-G humps always make pinning the tripod to the ground more than a little tough.

You might notice this one has a certain look that is different from my typical shots. It’s using some of the effects from my textures tutorial on that subject. Thanks to those of you that have been sending me your images that use the textures — it’s always cool to see how people have combined their stuff with the textures! Miss Aneila (guest blogger) from a few weeks back, did one as well, which is on that page… it’s the one with the pink dress.

Nothing makes me feel more like being in a foreign place than having the ceiling being entirely composed of cloth fluttering in the breeze.

Well, I am pretty sure that is what the Disney Imagineers intended when they designed this place. This was an Arabian-style restaurant right in the middle of Disney World, which has to be one of the coolest places in the world for photography. One of the problems there, frankly, is that there is so much to see that it is simply overwhelming. I think, now that I have been there multiple times, you just have to force yourself to drink in the details slowly over time. Wouldn’t being a Disney Imagnieer be just about the coolest job in the world?

My other piece of advice for parents (although, may Disney veterans already know this), plan a nap into the day. There is just no other way to do it with kids. Do the morning and lunch in one place… then maybe one ride on the way back to the hotel for nap time. Get a nice 2-hour nap in, then head out to different park for the evening. It will decrease stress levels by a factor of pi, and, besides, we adults are the ones that really like the naps, right? It’s a vacation, after all.

Actually, maybe I should change that title to: “I think I’d like to always be in Disney World!”

They shoot off fireworks every night in the Magic Kingdom, and I feel bad if I miss it. I’m sure that’s a strange thing to feel bad about… To get everything in, I have to plan the days and nights like a neo-Clark Griswald to ensure the perfect storm of technology meets up with whatever spectacular events are happening that day. For this shot, I had got reservations three months in advance at the California Grill restaurant, which has a nice majestic view of the show as the restaurant empties out onto the roof of the Contemporary Resort.

There is not much of a viewing area up there, and there were a bunch of people around me while I tried to get my tripod in place. I could deal with the crowds and fleshy shouldering, but the one thing that always annoys me is people beside me with little cameras that use their flashes to take photos of something a mile away. Sometimes they see I have a big camera, and they turn to ask for advice. They ask, “Do you think my flash helps?” I am really a totally nice and approachable guy, but since this is one of the very few things that annoy me, I usually just give them a shameful negative nod of the head.

This doesn’t have anything to do with the shot, but I had some great sushi in that restaurant. It was made by a Japanese female sushi chef, and she is one of only three “official” sushi chefs in the world (or so the matri’d told me). The Japanese do not let women be sushi chefs normally, as their hands are too “weak”.

On one special night per week at Disney World, they have this pirates and princesses party. This last year, I took my son, who was totally into Pirates of the Caribbean at the time. He went in full regalia and ran around like a nut… it was great and he had a super time!

The fireworks show is over the top on this night, and they project all kinds of cool stuff on the “Cinderella Castle” (that’s what my daughter calls it as she screams it out every time I have to watch that infernal Tinkerbell DVD).

…and next Thursday night you are all invited to my little photography talk here in Austin. It’s free… I know its being put on by a Mac user group, but PC users are welcome too. I think I will be giving a little tutorial too! You can get a map, times and stuff, at this website.

After spending a while watching burned out hippies cavalcade on Congress in various states of undress during First Night a few evenings ago, I was reminded of this photo at Disneyworld.  So, I went back to process it and see if it was as idyllic as I remembered.   This is Main Street with the assembled crowds, as everyone awaits the big fireworks show and Disney parade.