Contest #22 - Best Night Photo of Cinderella Castle

[seriouslydw]

Here's my Entry - it was taken in September of 2006

[SnwhtNdwrfs]

Pretty picture! Luckily the big ugly mirror is in the dark!


I like the stars.

[MainStreet, USA]

Ok, it took me some time to find a picture to submit for this contest. I have so many pictures of the castle at night, that what should have been an easy contest for me to contribute to turned out to be a real challenge in deciding which picture to use. At first I was going to use some of my favorite shots from Wishes, but then kinda like how Melissa said she wanted her pic to focus on the castle and not the fireworks, I backed off of all of my favorite Wishes shots one by one until I decided I needed to try something different altogether. I then sorted through a ton of different angles, different ranges, all nighttime Cinderella Castle shots, finding none I thought to be unique enough to make my contribution stand out.

So then I tried something different - I took my camera down to the park last weekend and actually went inside the castle and started taking pictures depicting things like the murals and high vaulted ceilings, all the while capturing details in the background to add validity to the nighttime aspect, such as Cinderella's Golden Carrousel all lit up and spinning in the distance. These turned out quite nice (some of them), but unfortunately the volume of people passing through the castle on that evening made this extremely difficult to get pictures that didn't have "ghosts" walking through them or that sort of thing. There was even one family inconsiderate enough that as soon as I was all set up in the corner, as far out of the way as I could possibly get, that they decided that the best place to stand and eat their ice creams was directly in front of my tripod. Grrr.....!

So... I decided not to use anything I got on that trip either. I was even just about ready to give up and just fall back one of my earlier-dismissed Wishes shots, when I stumbled blindly into good fortune. Last night, while my girlfriend and I were passing through the Tomorrowland Terrace on our way to Main Street for dinner, she happened to look up and ask if I had taken any pictures from that angle recently (she knew I was looking for a more unique nighttime castle shot). I told her I did, but humored her by taking a moment to analyze the potential shot. And I was glad I did. The sun had just set, meaning Main Street and the castle were all lit up, but the sky was still light and brightly colored with pinks, blues, purples and oranges. The pastel pinks of the clouds in particular were near-heavenly, and I just sort of realized that this had to be it. Unfortunately, by the time I got everything out of my bag and all set up, just about all of the pretty pink clouds had already drifted too far to the East and out of the picture, and the lighting had changed on the castle (you know how the colors and lighting are constantly changing) and no longer contrasted the sky quite as well. But I tried a few shots anyway, messing with a few different settings in each one, and got a couple I thought I was really going to like. In fact, I was so confident in those pictures coming out great (even before I saw them on my laptop) that I didn't bother to take another picture of the castle all night.

So, here I am now, and I did in fact decide on one of those pictures from last night, so I guess after today it's going to be up to you guys to decide just how much YOU like it, never mind what I think of it. The best of luck to all who entered. The castle at night is such a strikingly beautiful monument - there are so many fantastic shots submitted already. It's going to be a good, close race I think.
I'll stay tuned for the results.

[disneylady]

[BamaJenn]

So, here I am now, and I did in fact decide on one of those pictures from last night, so I guess after today it's going to be up to you guys to decide just how much YOU like it, never mind what I think of it. The best of luck to all who entered. The castle at night is such a strikingly beautiful monument - there are so many fantastic shots submitted already. It's going to be a good, close race I think.
I'll stay tuned for the results.

Awesome shot!!!

[disneydame2004]

I'll throw this one into the field. I've had some difficulty uploading it and it's not as sharp as the original version.

[DisneyFREAK91]

These are beautiful!!!!

I think I'm gonna cry

[MickeyBabe]

There are certianly some beautiful photographs here, great shots everyone!!!

I've found one I can share....




What amazes me is that there is such a diverse group of photos of the same castle.

This is going to be very hard to choose!

[DanO]

Here is my submission.

[BamaJenn]

Here is my submission.

WOW!!! Great shot!!!!!!!

[DanO]

Thanks BamaJen!

[stunrut]

Here's two during the Not So Scary Halloween Party!

[MickeyBabe]

Welcome to DWT stunrut!

Beautiful photo, unfortunately the submission phase of this contest is completre and the poll will be posted shortly.

Please enter our next contest that will begin shortly after this contest is over.