Daily Photo Tour - Tours Departing Nightly

I've always felt like Disneyland has always had an essence to it. There is always that atmosphere that seems to immerse you seconds after you walk through the turnstile. Even as a kid, I knew something was entirely different with this place. It's even more amazing when you realize how much of Walt Disney's efforts were guided toward that very objective. That is, to make a place that was unlike any other. Wow. This still makes me have to search for my socks (that's code for "knocks my socks off"). In the same way it has always been, Matthew's, Michaela's, and my goal to provide an essence through our photos. Something that people would instantly know is different.

We often speak about being in Disneyland after closing. To some of you who haven't had the amazing opportunity to do this, you may think we get some kind of special treatment, or know someone who let's us stay after. Well this isn't the case. We tend to meander after closing to get a lot of our night shots, only to be kindly gestured towards Main Street by security, or the "suits." It's before we are told to clear an area that the magic happens.

The inspiration for this shot came from the day version titled, "Tours Departing Daily", and the ambition to capture that essence explained earlier. The Jungle Cruise at night is a spectacular sight. It is a very well calculated blend of light and shadow, and the whole mix of light in between. It's also impressive that the entirety of this light is on a scale that is less intense, providing a dim mood that blankets over the entire facade. I always take a very artistic approach with HDR, and representation of the scene. I am consistently trying to find that "essence", and match it with some sort of feeling and mood that I get when I'm in Disneyland.

And now, as I sit here at the end of this commentary trying to explain Disneyland in some form of rudimentary description, I realize that the only way to communicate it is visually, through photos, through our vision, and through our connection with what we see and what we feel. So, I hope that through our photography you can feel something. That you can feel like a kid again. That you would feel hope or inspiration. I hope that you would feel transported to Disneyland when you might be a couple states away. And mostly, I hope that the essence that is Disneyland somehow touches your heart and causes you to remember that whatever it is you aspire to, whatever it is you want, whatever it is you dream for can really come true.