zippadi do da

today was another great day in the Animal Kingdom.  Today was beautiful and sunny and lots of fun.  first I had a class on safety that was fun. then I worked in Africa today mostly at tree backside.  it was fun, I found that everyday is always fun becasue I make it fun.  today at one point one of the leaders, Drew, came up and talked to me for a second about how he loves to watch me as I take pictures becasue of all my energy and engagement with the guests, so that was nice to hear. then I had one really big family come up and as they were all getting together for the picture one of the boys signaled to me that he was going to propose to his girlfriend so I took the shot and then he said one of me and you babe. so I started taking lots of pictures and moving around as he asked her and she cried and it was great! such a fun moment to be able to capture for them and the family was all surprised and cheering behind me. it was great fun.  no matter where you work it is your attitude that makes if fun.
have a magical night!

another day another dollar

so today was a good day.  I started out on bridge top which was actually really cold today with no sun but it was fun.  I did a lot of magic shots with the guests today which normally I don't really do to much of becasue I feel like when ever I do magic shots my equipment stops working. but today it was good. after that I went to work with Pocahontas which was a lot of fun.  I love working with characters.  she was super nice and really fun to watch talk to the kids.  I also have found that the camera has been hurting my wrist on my right hand lately so I went back to base a little early and when to see a trainer to see what I can do to help strengthen my wrist and prevent it from getting worse so that was fun and tomorrow I will see the trainer again and probable get a brace for my wrist.  have a magical night.

Flick

Today was a great day. I got to work at 7:30 and was assigned to work at Bridge top taking pictures of the tree, it was a lot of fun today I really do enjoy taking pictures for people.  I had one family where the mom and daughter were wearing mini mouse ears and the dad was a wearing goofy hat and the son wearing a pluto hat so I made them all pose like those characters with the girls acting like mini and pluto and goofy holding their ears out.  It looked really good and the family had a lot of fun taking the picture.  Later on I was moved over to east which is with characters so I was assigned to work with flick and it was so much fun.  I really love shooting characters the kids are always so excited I got some really cute ones with flick hugging the kids and their smiles so big.  and after I talked to flicks friend and they said how fun I was to work with and they hope I work with flick again.
have a magical night!

time flies

well time has been going really fast.  we are already almost to march. crazy! today was a slow day I was in south so I took some pictures of the tree and sent a few hours in the View helping people find their pictures and make purchases.  I really enjoy the view now that I feel like I understand it and can actually answer all of the questions that we get there I am even to the point where my coworkers can ask me questions and I know the answers. I always like it when I can be helpful and feel like I know what I'm doing.
well I have an early morning tomorrow so
have a magical night

Characters!

working with the characters is amazing! it was so much fun today working with the different characters in animal kingdom. to start the day I worked with Flick from "its a bugs life" movie I was only with him for a few families becasue the photographer was having trouble so I just stepped in for a little while to cover till they got everything fixed.  then I got moved over to Dino land and worked with Pluto and Goofy.  I loved working with them! it was so much fun mainly because they are so playful. they like to play with the guests and dance around and since they don't talk I get to interpret for them and be their voices.  at one point there was a kid with a shark on his shirt so goofy pointed it out and started pretending to be a shark it was hilarious then later there was another kid with a shark that looked like it was about to eat you on his shirt and so goofy looked at me pointed it out and then put his hand up to the shirt where the teeth were and pulled it back shaking his hand like it was sharp and he got cut then he put his hand close again and made it seem like he lost his arm. it was so fun and the kids loved it.  while all of this was happening I was constantly moving around trying to get a good shot of the kids faces and the excitement that they showed.  one really emotionally moment was when a little kid from the make a wish foundation came in to meet goofy and pluto and both of them put their noses close to him and gave him a kiss. it was so sweet and both goofy and pluto made it a special moment for the young boy and his family.  that is what makes me love working for Disney becasue here it is all about making everyone feel special and important and making their dreams come true. after goofy and pluto I was moved over to Doug and Russell and took their pictures for a while, they were fun and liked to do things like point out the mere cats that were close by.  after that I finished up with Pocahontas and had fun watching how excited people get to meet her.
have a magical day!

today

So today was a great day mainly because I decided today that I needed to be really energetic because it was going to be a long day and if I didn't have energy then it would be even longer.  so starting at tree backside I was determined to have fun and make everyone else have fun as well.  It was a ton of fun and I'm pretty sure I looked like a complete fool! but it was a ton of fun and I was able to make some really stubborn kids smile today and that always makes me feel like a success.  I had some really fun pictures today as well that I'm hoping to nominate for picture of the week I will go look at them tomorrow and see if they turned out as good as I think they did.  I also did really good today at having more creative shoots and magic shoots.  I had a few families that came and saw me multiple times and it was fun to see them through out the day and make them do ridicules things and they would actually do it.  when a photographer tells you to do something crazy do it and do i all  out becasue it well look really cool if you do but if you only do it half way then you will look ridicules.
have a magical night!

Last day of training!

so today was my character training and my last day of training (yay!) it was a ton of fun. I really enjoy photographing characters mainly because it is so much fun to watch the kids come up and meet the characters. it was a lot different to shoot characters tho mainly because I take a back seat and don't really do much talking.  I found that I have become pretty planted while taking pictures lately mainly because I was taking pictures of icons.  it was fun learning to move around more to get the best angles of both the guests and the performer.  I got some really good shoots and some not so good ones but all in all it was a good day and I learned a lot
have a magical night

memory

so I am losing my memory... all the days keep blurring together and causing me to forget if I did my blog that day.  today was a really early day and because of that I am exhausted.  I'm sorry to say that todays blog is really short.  today was a good day and a lot of fun I really enjoy my job and talking to everyone at the parks.  tomorrow I will be doing my character training and will write a lot more then.  sorry this is so short. I'm just so tired.
have a magical night.

long day at the office

It's been a long, been a long, been a loooooong daaaaaaaaaay.

Hi ho there, my name is Chantel. I do pictures and things. Today I was in Africa, and I made some pretty magical moments today. Except I was really, really cold. So I danced around a lot and then someone took a video of me and it was weird.

I like to take pictures. There's a song about making memories in this old 90's Disneyland Sing-a-long video from VHS. It goes like this:

Making Memories
Making Memories
Taking Pictures is
Making Memories

Catching little pieces of time
Making 'em yours
Making 'em mine
Great Vacations and Celebrations can
Fade away in a year!

But when we're making memories
Happy days are always here!

I really like that song. Almost as much as the "I'm Walking Right down the Middle of Main Street USA." That one makes me want to dance all night long.

So then I did a Mardi Gras thing with my favorite people and I ate some food from Princess and the Frog. Tiana wasn't there so I was a little disappointed. But I guess it was kinda cool.

Also I took my roommate's pin that is super pretty and I'm really jealous. I'm probably gonna go steal it when she's asleep.

So something that was fun with taking pictures today was that I had a family that was talking to me saying that they are always in the same positions so would I position them diffrently.  it was fun because I got to be more creative with them and pose them in fun ways.

have a magical night!

Magical day

today was a great day! it started out with being freezing cold (cold in florida who would have guessed) but thats ok I was all bundled up with a hat and gloves and hand warmers.  I got to take pictures at tree backside for a while which was fun because I like to talk to the guests about the tree and have them guess how many animals are carved into the tree... any guesses? more than 300, so if you ever get asked now you know.  then later in they day I got moved to africa bridge which is a fun spot because you can hear the music from the street party they have every hour in Africa.  but while I was there one of my managers came up and was talking to me for a little while and then some guests came up so I started taking pictures and when my manager left he gave me a four keys card of recognition for being so good with the guests.  that made me feel really happy because I had been feeling like I wasn't doing as good as some of the other photographers (comparing yourself to others not a good thing when it tares you down.  I think its ok to look at the good things that others do and then try to improve your self but don't let it bring you down. ) so that was making me feel more upbeat and the rest of the day went really fast just continuing to talk with the guests and have fun.  I feel like that is the main part when I am taking pictures, if I am happy and having a good time then the guests are more happy when taking a picture.
have a magical night.

these are some of the icons that I take pictures of.

this is the Africa street party

Tree of Life!

Mt Everest 

Front Gate

Africa door

Rain Rain...

so today was a pretty boring day. it started with me being in africa and having problems with my gear, which involved me having to re-start everything a few times. having to restart isn't to big of a problem I know how to get everything up and running but its hard when your trying to connect images to the guests account and your gear stops working and your not able to connect it.  so for one of them they were going into watch the lion king play so I had to have them go in and come back and see me after to get their images. then the rest of the day it was raining which really meant that I stood under a roof to so as not to get wet and not to let my camera get wet.  so really it was a rather boring afternoon after an eventful morning of equipment failure.
the pictures are coming they I just need to do some editing.
have a magical night.

Gorillas

today was a great day. it started with me being at tree backside which is actually a hard spot in the morning because of the position of the sun.  so I had to work with sun glare and finding good positions to avoid that but still have a really good shot of the tree behind the guests.  after that I was moved over to a spot by the safari ride and it is next to the gorillas enclosure.  so it was fun for the times when the gorillas were in that area because all of the guests would be so excited and come running.  it was also a little difficult because some guests would want pictures while others were wanting to just watch the gorillas so it was fun trying to work with all of the different needs of the guests to get a good shot and not interrupt those watching the gorillas.  it was also a really short day because that was all I did.  after that I went home.
I do have pictures that I will try and post tomorrow.
Have a magical night!

Heat wave

So this morning was great fun.  when we started we were in the base and our leader was giving the announcements for the day and at the end said that there was a four keys car to give out to someone in the room and it was for me :) Four keys cards are a form of recognition for when we do an excellent job for something.  I received mine for getting picture of the week last week.  so that was a fun way to start the morning.  then I went out to Africa and it was fun to watch as the fog slowly disappeared to watch as the park slowly appeared before me.  how ever once the fog was gone it was a really HOT day.  which was fun to try and take pictures when it was so hot because children get kind of grumpy when its like that.  so I had to come up with a lot more creative way to get kids to smile.  really I just made sure to take more time before shooting to talk to the kids and get them to like me and them get a nice big smile out of them.  it was a challenge but it was still fun.  I really enjoy this job and talking to the kids about what they did that day and what rides they went on or characters they meet that day. its fun when they tell me their favorite thing from the day and how happy they get about it, its those smiles that I try to capture in my picture.  as well as taking pictures I got to spend a little time in the View.  that was fun talking to people about their pictures and how their trips were going.  helping them to decide if they wanted to buy pictures or if they should wait.  it was fun to be able to answer their questions.  It made me feel really good about being able to do this job well.  I really do have a great job.
have a magical night.
P.S I will try to have pictues in my next blog, I am not able to use pictures from work and I can't take any pictures for myself, and for the last few weeks it has been raining when ever I have a day off. so tomorrow it is supposed to be a clear day and I will try and take lots of pictures.

Africa

I don't have much to say for today.  I spent the day in Africa and for most of it I felt like I was melting.  It was a hot day and I was in the sun for most of it.  I took lots of pics today.  sadly I was not as energetic as I usually am.  I was just feeling kind of tired.  I will do better tomorrow.  I did have one of my leaders talk to me about how I'm doing, she said I was doing great and gave me a few things to try and work on to continue to improve.  other than that I was a pretty short day for me but still fun.
have a magical night.