Anderson Family Photography: Disneyland Fun and putting into practice some lessons learned

Disneyland!! I love this place. It has been really fun to take Michelle here so she can get a glimpse of what it is like to be a Californian. It was a better trip for her, because last time she was a little sick and a bit pre-occupied by the little bean of a person she was carrying inside of her. This time the bean was big enough to fit in a stroller and thanks to Grannie Annie being around Michelle was able to enjoy herself just a little bit more. It also didn't hurt that Brian would run and get fast passes for us. It was also really fun to have Courtney there with her little family. It is a different experience to see little kids enjoying themselves at Disneyland. I mean, I've always have had fun going, but I never saw my own facial expression when I saw Mickey for the first time or when I got to drive an Autopia car. So it is fun to be with Courtney's family and see them have fun at the park. What does this trip have to do with photography? Well, I have been off Auto mode for some time now, though I jump back onto it from time to time when I get flustered with the many settings of manual, and I wanted to try out some of the ideas that John taught me the other day. With the prime 35mm 1.8 lens that John lent me I got to try my hand at some fun Disney shots. Now I forgot to mention in my last post that he taught me about locking the focus and the area view, I think that is what it is called.

Anyways, I didn't really see the purpose in using it (this falls in line with the philosophy part of the lesson that I wasn't getting the hang of). What it is, in my own words and limited understanding, is a button that not only locks your focus point and settings on your camera (which I get) but it can also help you change a little bit of your exposure, make it darker or brighter...I think. Now I understand that when you lock the settings on one object, then change what you are looking at, the new subject that you are looking at needs to be at about the same distance or else it's not in focus. Got it. Though I don't why you would really want to do this. John tried to explain it to me, but yada yada yada, I didn't get it. However, I practiced a little with this technique that he showed me and I think I understood the purpose just a little, though my shots came out a little out of focus. It was funny too to see the Disneyland photographers setting up their shots at picturesque locations the same way John told me about how old school photography was done. With a pad and paper. He said that the old schoolers would write down all the settings on the camera so when they developed their pictures they could see what worked and what didn't. So the D-land photographers were using their cheat sheets (probably written by actual photographers) to dial in the setting for their perfect shot with the setting sun. So anyways, that's why I'm talking about it.

One Last Thing. Be prepared for a lot of pictures. But because there are so many, they aren't ordered properly. I grabbed these from my Google plus album, and it does something weird to the order by making some pictures, "highlights" so they pull them out of order and then I get left with having to put them in order. However I have a headache so I will just have to talk about them individually, which may in fact take longer....maybe I will rearrange them

Looking excited on his way to Disneyland

Waiting for his ticket

Family picture, on it's a small world

William thinking that for him "It's a big world before you can walk"

Self Portrait on Dumbo

Never noticed this before. Ken Anderson was/is my Grandfather. However I don't think this store was named after him on Main Street USA

Ever since I figured out how to take night time shots, I've been doing it ever since

Radiator Springs at night. It was really pretty looking

On the tram home, this wasn't the "best" shot. There should be a good one some where

Flo's in the day

And at night

This is when I used the focus lock. I focused in on a bright spot on the Toy Story Mania ride, then looked over at the world of color and was able to take this shot. It looked good on the screen on my camera, so I took some more.

Grannie Annie with William waiting in line for Toy Story Mania

Tram ride home

Brothers in the same Autopia car. This is probably the first time that we willingly got into the same Autopia car

William on Dumbo

William still thinking that it's a big world after all

It is a little bit more difficult to take self portraits with a big camera. It's harder when you don't have the settings right

The twins that aren't too twin like...at least according to me

Michelle in shadow, in line for the Cars ride

This one turned out nicely. Just using the kit lens

Using my borrowed prime lens

A tad sleepy

Jane totally in fashion

Funny smile Jane

Action shots with the prime lens. I don't know where the other shot drove off to though.

Wearing the same shirt

Nice Picture of the early birds

More silly Jane

Pretty happy boy

He has some funny chubby cheek looks

Nice little shot of Jake

This place looked really pretty at night

Enjoying it's a small world

I think I ran around holding that focus lock button to try and get a different view of the show. I was squeezing the button so hard I was a bit worried about breaking it.

This one turned out nicely I think. Took this one with the AF lock.

Michelle doing her thing

Brian holding a churro that he got for us

Same as the other world of color settings

MY CAMERA IS NOW FAST ENOUGH TO TAKE FIREWORK PICTURES!!!!

Before she jumped

One of these firework pictures were taken right before I about ran into another observer. Fortunately Brian bear hugged me to stop me from slamming my lens into the back of someone's head