For millions of people, the Magic Kingdom Train Station is a bit of a landmark. It signals a transition of sorts. You’re leaving the known world and all of its problems behind. On the other side, there’s the promise of excitement, happiness and incredibly oversized cartoon animals that would scare the pants off you if you found them n the real world.
Like most landmarks, it’s incredibly crowded with tourists who want to pose in front of it for a snapshot. I can’t tell you how much you learn to appreciate Content-Aware tools to get some of the world’s tackiest fashion out of your photo.
The Unofficial End of Summer
Labor Day isn’t the most crowded time at Walt Disney World’s Magic Kingdom. That title goes to the Easter and Christmas seasons. Still, I try to avoid the place on any particular holiday. For some reason, folks seem to think it’s a good idea to go to crowded places with the notion that everyone else will have somewhere else to go. Then they’re surprised to find that everyone is in the same place. The same hot, over-crowded place. I’d rather stay home and mow my lawn.
If holidays are unsurprisingly crowded, the weeks before aren’t quite as bad. That’s why I ventured out to Disney for some last shots of summer a couple of weeks ago. Even though weekends are always packed, the attitude of the crowd is a bit different. You don’t have the holiday “last gasp for vacation fun” vibe going on that typically ruins everything. Instead, people felt like they had some time. It was very much a casual vibe – business as usual.
Planning for the Magic Kingdom Train Station Sunset
If you want to get a shot with a good sunset, it helps to live here and understand the weather. The entire day was miserable with rain and overcast skies. Most people wouldn’t expect anything from the sunset. My experience told me otherwise. By the time the sun goes down on a miserable day like that, the clouds usually start to break apart.
You don’t want a sky without any clouds. Instead, you want clouds with attitude. That’s what happens at the end of a rainy summer day in Florida. The only thing I had to do was decide what subject I wanted under that sky. That lead me back to the Magic Kingdom Train Station. The sunset is off to the side, giving some wonderful sidelight to the clouds. As the sky gets darker, Disney lights up the station and it creates a wonderful glow to outline the station.
I timed things perfectly, which scared the crap out of me. Instead of walking up to the scene under perfect conditions, I prefer to be there ahead of time and wait for it. While the perfect sky was very likely, I also knew it wouldn’t last very long as the sun dipped under the horizon.
It’s better to be patient than to scramble, especially when surrounded by a crowd of tourists with different agendas. Fortunately, things came together and I found my shot.
Image may be NSFW.
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