Fairytale Photos ~ Everyday Magic

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.
As the pixie dust settles it is sometimes hard to remember that sometimes magical moments take place everyday. Not just birthdays or parties but every single day. Those little moments. The rests and preparations that help us enjoy the Tuesdays and Thursdays and bland stretches of time while we're patiently waiting between red letter days.
Hence everyday photography.
I use all sorts of events and non-events to practice photography so that red letter days can be a little more enthusiastically photographed. As a castmember teaching drawing lessons in Animator's Palate once said, "Practice makes improvement!" I can only improve if I am willing to look at my old photos and realize why I like them and why I don't and keep moving forward.
So, without further ado, here is my office while my son does his homework. This space doesn't have the best lighting in the house or the most space to work with, which makes it ideal for pointing out weak spots in photography by exaggeration.



Doing homework

My first picture I back away as far as I can in the limited space and shoot square on toward the desk and lamp. The window to the right of this picture and the lamp in the picture are the only sources of light. 
I end up with a mediocre photo of one of my favorite vacation photos. I'm okay with cutting objects hanging out of frame. But only if it is interesting. This falls under the category of "just messy." 


A first picture.

Slightly better angle on the wall. The lampshade interacting with the shape of the canvas I really rather like. Sadly, the corner of the wall isn't square to the photo and what had been a slight tilt backward to the camera produces an odd tapering effect.
Like so:



Intentional High Angles lend a cartoonish large head to small body distortion.
I like it when I'm photographing my kids being goofballs, just for the added strangeness.

Holding your phone square to the subject is very important unless you are going for a high angle or low angle. So while my son is still directly behind me, working away on his homework, I attempt to square up my angled photo of the room.

Angled view of the opposite wall. I think it'd look better if I backed up even more.
However my back is literally against the wall at this point, so no dice.

This angled view of the room paying attention and keeping phone square to the back wall showcases without losing drawing the eye out of frame. Also, it just makes me happy.
I like this picture composition much better.
Although not perfectly square, it is very much an improvement.
The light is coming from a wall I'm very nearly facing and so nothing pops as much as it could. The color balance isn't great. This little photo shoot really made me be aware of camera angling and the fact that a little slant produces some very dissatisfying effects.

“When we do fantasy we must not lose sight of reality.”

~Walt Disney, Be Our Guest: Perfecting the Art of Customer Service

So get out there, make mistakes, get a little practice photo shoot in during your everyday magic, try a shot that shouldn't work, keep moving forward and see what fairytale photos follow you home.