Five Minutes to Fairytale Photos ~ Strike Gold

I think that the magic of a Disney vacation exists in three wonderful parts: the dreaming of planning, the pixie dust moments during trip itself and the memories you take with you for years to come.
Since I can't live in the Cinderella Castle Suite or even on property year round, pictures help bring a bit of the fairytale back into my everyday life.
In my enthusiastic pursuit of remembering the Magic, I take hundreds of my own pictures every vacation and hope to share a bit of my experience with you.
I know you're on vacation, but sometimes, it pays to set an alarm, wake up before dawn and take some photos during the golden hour.



Sunrise through distant rain.  Beautiful

This so called golden hour, the last and first hour of sunlight each day, offers beautiful, far less harsh lighting. If you've ever stood staring at sunrise thinking how completely blessed and beautiful it all is, you know the magic of the lighting. Some people say it's impossible to take a bad picture during magic hour.  They'd be wrong. But I will say with lighting as lovely as this far more of my pictures do turn out.
Golden hour is a wonderful time to take pictures of the landscape, the sea and lovely photos of the empty ship completely without other people in the background. It's vacation. At dawn you'll be nearly alone on deck.

Even security lighting fixtures look magical during the golden hour.

And assembly station signs.



Deck Four during golden hour.

Or, in my case, occasionally with my kids, since they prefer to wake slightly before dawn.

Luminescence of lighting during the golden hour

It even make wandering around before debarkation look pretty.

But as with all things Disney this year, golden hour is a Limited Time Magic event.  Stand still long enough and it will fade to normal daylight.



Still alone on deck, but the light quality changes.

“Times and conditions change so rapidly that we must keep our aim constantly focused on the future.”

~Walt Disney

So keep moving forward, make mistakes, capture the magic of the golden hour, try a shot that shouldn't work, but might and see what fairytale photos follow you home.