We were at Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party on Sunday night and the kids wanted to ride Barnstormer, so I suggested they ride once or twice while I wandered Storybook for a few photos. The whole area is teeming with holiday spirit during the party. The entrance is decked out with lights and candy canes. There are elves doing crazy gymnastics routines. There are treat stops and characters. And the big guy himself, Saint Nick, is in the back—just to the left of the train station exit—meeting families and taking gift requests.
But I found myself here, in the splash pad area. The "snow" was coming down hard and lights were strung everywhere. And everything just looked a little different than it does on any other night.
I wanted to capture the otherworldliness of it all, so I took this photo—all about gathering light at 40mm, 1/30 second, f/2.2, ISO 2500—and then brought it home, edited it into a vintage vibe, and then turned the whole thing into an oil painting. Sometimes you have to go far in edits to get close to how it felt in real life.