Cinderella Castle with Fireworks
Friday, December 10, 1999

This composite of three photos was the first montage I created in Photoshop. Its biggest drawback is the fact that the castle was heavily cropped and lost a lot of detail when blown up to full size.

One important step in perfecting the illusion in this photo is to carefully mask off the dark areas of the spires. All you need is one light trail appearing in front of the castle to ruin the whole effect.

Nikon 950
f3.1 - 1 sec.
Fireworks: f9.6 - 4 sec.

German Trains
Saturday, December 11, 1999

No, I didn't mix up my photos of Germany with my shots of Walt Disney World. This fairly convincing photo was taken outside the Germany pavilion in EPCOT. It shows one of the advantages of the Nikon 950 camera. Its swivel head allowed me to take this shot from a much lower angle which made the trains look larger and slightly above me instead of looking like I shot them from a low-flying plane.

Nikon 950
f6 - 1/44 sec.

Spaceship Earth on the Eve of the Millenium
Saturday, December 11, 1999

I thought this would be the highlight of my 1999 trip but the fireworks shot easily surpassed it in drama. Still for a handheld shot at 1/15 sec. it remains one of my favorites.

Nikon 950
f2.6 - 1/15 sec.

Canada at EPCOT
Monday, May 21, 2001

Shooting up the stairs at the Canada pavilion in EPCOT gave me a very dramatic photo. Unfortunately, the sky was almost white and the stairs and rocks pulled the viewer's attention a bit too much. I popped in a gradient for the sky and a touch of Gaussian blur. And for those purists out there who say, "Yeah, I can tell the sky wasn't real the roof has a dark outline, " I checked the original and the dark outline is natural. So there!

Nikon 950
f7.4 - 1/125 sec.

Japan at EPCOT
Friday, December 21, 2001

This shot was taken as I exited the restaurant after a pleasant lunch at the Japan pavilion.

Nikon 995
f7.5 - 1/237 sec.