As a follow-up to the THIS post,
Absolutely, this is an extra and not anything that should be seen as something to invest in and there are plenty of amazing Disney families that will stop you and say “hey, would you all like to be in that picture” (I do this habitually) and there are even greater Disney people that will turn that moment into a photoshoot for you all because they have been there too and they want you to have the same experience. In actuality after our Capture Your Moment we stopped in Pandora to take one final set of pictures and one of the photographers (man oh man I wish I remembered his name) had what I am assuming is a rubber duckie in his hat (stick with me here) and he would squeak it to get the kids attention….it worked marvelously and honestly the ones he took were some of my favorite pictures of the trip.
Yes, I filter the pictures so they are more cohesive for the ‘Gram. Some come out really bright and some darker, so the filtering helps.
As you can see by Sean’s polo shirt…it was flipping hot and the rest of the country seems to be on fire too!! Maybe the filter wasn’t the best laid plan as you couldn’t tell in the original how hot it was.
Just veering off topic a smidge…in full transparency, I occassionally use an app called Cupace. Now, I will say this is not always fullproof, but basically it allows you to cut out an image and paste it onto another. I tend to use it if I have two pictures that are seemingly exact, but lets say all of us, but one are smiling in one and in the other one that one person is smiling, but the rest are kind of off the grid, I can “trace” around the smiling face or their whole body (sometimes the hand movement is slightly off and you want it to look seamless) and ‘cut’ it. From there you go back to the original ‘all, but one’ picture, select the the share icon on the photo, select Cupace’s paste image option and superimpose the cut image onto the new pictureThis may take some fiddling, shifting, and swearing, but once it it looks like it fits perfectly over the original image I save it and discard the other. Still with me?! Confused?! Trying to make sense of it?! I highly suggest downloading it and playing around with it yourself (the ads are kind of irritating, but nothing that is not easily ignored for what I get out of it)
Keep in mind that I have an Android Galaxy Note, so I have what is called “motion picture” on my phone at all times (I know IPhone has their own version), so I can literally scroll through the moving picture of what I took and select the best frames (or even save the video if it is really cute) and save them. I love the motion picture especially for Disney so I am guarenteed to at least have something that I like (especially if other people are taking our picture) and Cupace is kind of my backup. This is also REALLY time consuming to do at the end of the day, but 100% worth it especially if you have wiggly won’t stand still kids, so this gives you a better chance of getting something out of it. EV did the below out of the blue and the end frame which would have been the actual picture had I not turned on motion picture was far from this, so being able to scroll through the frames and get the below, is priceless…
Again, Cupace is not foolproof as there have been many images that no matter how I ‘cut’ one frame, the picture looks like I did a cut and paste job, but moreover than not, it has been awesome. Just to give you an idea, you can see below (I should have saved the original to show you, but unfortunately it is kind of an immediate reaction to just trash it).
Can you guess which one of us is ‘cut’? Often times you have to look at the wall or window behind us because it is the one thing that is difficult aligning, but you would never tell otherwise
An example of when the cut and paste does not work exactly to plan is seen below. Now is it crazy and with some filtering can it look blended…yup, but it is noticeable that I cut and paste Commodore’s face, also yup! Plus the lighting of the picture I took this from was different. You will be able to see the image that I grabbed this from above. Commodore literally had a meltdown about being picked up for the photo (he had a glorious morning of walking everywhere so stopping him for a picture was life-ending) and there was only one shot where he was head on and smiling.
Is all this cutting and pasting faces conversation for the sake of getting a good family picture getting creepy yet?!
Anyway, we are talking about pictures and I thought I would include this trick if you are a family that struggles for good pictures in Disney and digressing is kind of my thing so back to our regularly scheduled program…
As a reminder I am a Gold Annual Passholder at Walt Disney World simply for the pictures. Without fail, any weekend we go, I am coming home with pretty much no less than about 250 pictures taken from the photographers in the park alone. So ya, I am pretty big on pictures.
However, just sometimes you want nice relaxing photos, not where you are standing in line for photopass or quickly wrangling kids for the nice person who has offered and you want them to be able to go on with their day and not remembering you bribing your kids with fruit snacks to smile at the awesome person with your phone.
I am not going to go into the whole magic of Greg as you can read that for yourself HERE. I will however talk about whether or not getting a professional photographer to commemorate special occassions (and I am not talking about wedding photography here) in Disney or using Capture Your Moment is worth it. I will start with the latter of Capture Your Moment.
The price FOR US, was worth it. $50 for over 25 pictures in a little less than 30 minutes was perfect.
When not to consider it or at least give it second thought…
if you are ONLY going to be buying a Memory Maker just for this session and you are not celebrating anything other than being in Disney, I would think long and hard since it quickly becomes over $100 for a little less than 30 minutes and honestly you can do a comparative pricing with local Orlando photographers who will meet you in many places on property (::cough cough:: consider the Boardwalk) and take your pictures. However if you are staying for several days to longer, purchasing the Memory Maker for $169 where it covers ALL pictures and media from your vacation, I think this is where the value is and I would purchase this one over the day of. The ‘magic shots’ that the Disney Photopass Photographers do really are magical.
Tip: If you have seen other photographers use a magic shot in that area that you would like with you and yours, do not be afraid to ask. They are very accomodating. The one with EV and fairy wings did not come out (total bummer) , but now that it is an option. I am definitely going to ask for it next time.
With that being said, you know your kids best. If your kids are impossible to wrangle for pictures and under no circumstance will smile for a photographer for a given length of time, I would a 100% pass on this and wait until they are a little older. This will NOT be an enjoyable experience for you at all. EV started to get really tired of being “on” for the camera so although it was hard for me to do, I kind of just let her do her thing. It was not worth ruining the rest of the day over her being tired of taking pictures and listening to “EV…EV…EV!!!! Look over here” “Smile at the camera”.
If you are considering an Orlando photographer versus the Capture The Moment, a couple questions you might want to ask (after you have seen some sort of portfolio) are;
- What is the cost (this should be the first question obviously)?
- Where are they willing to meet you and is there an additional cost for that location (many places in Disney are paid parking and they many not factor that into the actual shoot cost)
- How long will the session be?
- How many of the photos are you able to walk away with?
- Do you have access to the negatives? What they might think is a keeper may not be your vision (some of my fave pictures are the ones where EV is making faces)
- Do you have the ability to purchase more? Nothing bothers me more than paying for photos, the selection being made for me and not having the option to buy more if I want to.
Truly the last question should be the deciding factor regarding whether or not you want you want to continue with Capture or seek the alternate option.
Of course you can say nuts to that, dress up anyway and ask any willing Disney stranger that is in the area of your picture to snap one for you. If you have some sort of ‘motion picture’ option on your phone make sure it is turned on as it is kind of rude to double check the image while the person is standing there (unless they ask you too) as it is not their responsibility to hang out with you to get the perfect picture while they are trying to enjoy their day too. Remember they did it to be kind.
Now lets discuss Capture Your Moment and the best way to maximize your time, also known as what I would have done in hindsight.
First off, they tell you to get their ten minutes early. Do yourself a favor, learn from my mistakes and get there earlier than that (grab yourself a Starbucks early). I am early for EVERYTHING. I am habitually the on-time girl and NEVER run late, but there were a ton of things here that totally slipped my mind to factor in, such as the Disney Parking Lot and accessing said lot, and the check-in point and having our backpack searched. Second, I scheduled the pictures the day we were leaving and originally the plan was to get late checkout, do the pictures, ride a ride or two, and come back to get the luggage and leave. Sean made me second guess myself, so I got up mad early (emphasis on the “I” part) packed up everyone and put everything by the door. We had about thirty minutes to get to the park (where was my mind in thinking this could be accomplished) and with only a 7 minute drive to Animal Kingdom, so we called for a bellperson to scoop up our luggage and had them drive around the car. Ten minutes (not long at all, but when you have somewhere to be, it feels like FOREVER) in and said bellperson still was not there and forgetting that there was a teenager convention larger than life at our hotel, we basically skipped out on the bellperson (#sorrynotsorry) and went flying out the door.
Where upon we were in such a rush, we took the wrong exit, got to Animal Kingdom where everyone and there mother was paying in cash and even though the park basically just opened we were all the way at the back and the trams were not running (I wish I was kidding). By the time we got into the park and hauled butt (I apologized to about the ten families I almost ran into and trampled) to the Island Mercantile shop (the Capture Your Moment kiosk is right outside) we were about five minutes late. Not a HUGE deal but when you only have a certain window, time is of the essence and plus that is also someone elses time I am infringing on…being paid or not.
First off, HUGE kudos to our photographer Nicole and Cresslyn.
Honestly, the timeframe of the session did freak me out a little as my kids are more of the “what is that” variety and I was just hoping to at least get one or two pictures of them looking straight at the camera smiling and use this as a practice session if we decided to do this again. Spoiler Alert: We. Are. Doing. This. Again. Nicole and Cresslyn were extremely professional and soooo nice about us running late as apparently the family before us was too and for the EXACT same reason (minus the Dolphin hotel and exit fiasco every bus for them showed up, but Animal Kingdom so remember that).
Upon arrival at the kiosk, they will check you in and ask you if you are celebrating anything special. When we told them it was Commodore’s 2nd birthday they took out the cutest sign to take pictures with. But they had a bevy of options that you might want to inquire about.
I loved that there was a second person that came with the Nicole and the prop/sign as it gave the kids someone else to focus on other than Nicole and the ones where Cresslyn got them to focus on her came out fabulous.
Second, I was shocked that they asked if we had any special locations in mind minus the Tree of Life. I had read that they really do not do this, so I thought this was really nice and it caught me off guard as I needed 10 more seconds we didn’t have to think about this, plus I felt weird with us already running late. In addition, I kind of just wanted to go with the flow and see what happened, so I gave them free reign. I am definitely going to review the #CaptureYourMoment on Instagram (it is my only social media outlet) to see other locations that families have done to get some ideas for the future.
You know I love myself a good fair picture (case in point my wedding photos), so I would either ask for the Dino-Rama area the next time or just to get closer to the Tree of Life and do some up close and personal shots. You are allowed to buy 2 slots back to back and have your time extended, so that might be an option as well. As I write this I am already dreaming of the Dino-Rama pictures lol.
The ones in Asia were really cute but there were a couple of us sitting down that did not really look like we were in Animal Kingdom at all (see for yourself below). plus with the way EV is with her glasses and where Nicole was sitting she was looking straight up (because that is how she looks down) instead of straight ahead. This is a totally small thing and there were amazing photos done around the same area that came out fantastic, I just wouldn’t venture over there again.
Seriously, macaws were flying overhead because we were near the UP ampitheatre..sigh
Tips For The Future:
- Have a couple of locations in mind if the photographers ask
- If you have your own props bring them and let them know. Keep in mind, they have to be cleared, so I wouldn’t bring anything massive or what might be considered offensive (use your judgement people).
- I would try to keep them central, any walking is factored into your photos. It took a bit to get to Asia from the front of the Tree of Life and I am not sure I would do that again just to get as much out of the time as possible.
- I saw some families online who had actually walked up towards the Tree of Life to get even closer pictures with some of the amazing carvings of the tree and I would 100% ask to do that next time.
- Don’t be afraid to ask for a shot of something once you are in a location. There was a super awesome (don’t feed the animals) sign in Asia and I requested the sign in the picture of the kids. I laughed a lot…
Nicole and Cresslyn could not have been nicer and it was obvious how much they loved working with the mouse. I would definitely ask for Nicole again as you can request photographers.
Now onto hiring a Professional Orlando Photographer for your Disney taking needs:
Yes, we are good friends with Greg. Yes, we still pay him! I have no idea why I get asked this. The man is a professional, has a professional business, and should be paid as such. No professionals time should be free EVER.
Traditionally it is about 2 hours with Greg that involves a lot of walking around the Boardwalk. Whenever we get our sample photos without fail Sean and I look at each other and say “worth it!”
Having a professional photographer commemorate special events in Disney like birthdays is important to our family because one, there is always one of us that is not in the picture and two, there is just something special about the photos. Greg has got an amazing eye and the two hours pass and I cannot even remember a picture being taken until we get a slew of them and I legit get misty-eyed over them. This is how you separate a good photographer from a great photographer in my mind. I love that I do not have to stop anyone to take a picture or drag our family to a photopass photographer when they are bordering an existential crisis. He takes all the guesswork out and tells us where to go, where to stop, what to hold and what we should do. The experience couldn’t be easier and more fun and the pictures speak for themselves.
He always sends a few samples prior to sending me everything else which I love…
I feel that both photography experiences although completely different are both worth it and I would suggest either one to anyone that is asking. Obviously it comes down to if you really need either one and if the cost is worth it to you. We use Greg for bigger occassions, birthday, christmas photos, things of that nature while I would use Capture Your Moment a little more since the photos just get uploaded to my Magicband and for the price and experience it is a lot of fun.
Have you used Capture Your Moment yet?! Do you commemorate Disney events with a photographer? Thinking about it? Couldn’t care less? Tell me all of it….so curious….
