I'm physically still at Poly today...but we're looking in another direction. It was a cool, cloudy January afternoon when I took this over the weekend standing on the beach at the Polynesian and looking out over the water. The wind was whipping and tiny waves were crashing onto the rocks with the same sort of calming cadence as the ocean. It struck me that, short of the addition of Bay Lake Tower just to the left of the Contemporary, this is the exact view that we would have taken in almost 55 years ago when Walt Disney World first opened its gates—consisting of only Magic Kingdom, the Contemporary, and Disney's Polynesian Village Resort.
This is one of those times when it kills me to know that you're probably looking at a tiny little version of this image on your phone. Don't get me wrong...I'm grateful that you're looking at all. But there's so much subtle detail and beauty here that gets lost in a teeny-tiny format.
I was shooting at about 50mm and 1/160 second, f/8.0, ISO 100. Edits were gentle, leaning into a vintage vibe fit for a view that's stood mostly unchanged for more than half a century.