Winter Castle

Date: 12/2003
Location: Sleeping Beauty's Castle, Fantasyland, Disneyland
Comments: This has the be the most photographed image at Disneyland, so I wanted to play around with visual affects on my rendition. This was taken during the Holiday season, so the castle is decked out in holiday regalia.

Main Street Concept

Date: 5/2005
Location: Art Gallery, New Orleans Square, Disney's California Adventure
Comments: This is an original concept sketch of what Walt Disney envisioned Main Street to look like. Notice the opera house is ont he left side o the street, while the fire house is on the right. This is the inverse of what would soon become the actual Main Street. Note: I had to touch this photo up quite a bit, because of all the light reflection that the cover glass gave off. Some portions of the image were smudged in order for me to remove the gallery lighting reflections. This finished image was also a blend of three seperate shots of the original sketch.

Electric Bug

Date: 5/2005
Location: Electric Light Parade, Sunshine Plaza, Disney's California Adventure
Comments: Part of the landscape of Disneyland included the Disney Electric Parade, which made its debut at Disneyland on June 17, 1972. Then called "The Main Street Electric Parade", it features floats, characters and cast members covered with "over a half million lights" was a mainstay at the park until 1996. It was resurrected at Disney's California Adventure in (need date).

Spires

Date: 2/2003
Location: Cinderella Castle, Fantasyland, Disney World
Comments: This shot was taken on the backside of the castle. Some facts I uncovered online: The castle is 189 feet tall & is made out of fibreglass. Construction of the castle began in late 1969 and took 18 months to build. Herbert Ryman began with a charcoal sketch, which he developed into a painting. He used several French castles for his inspiration, among them Chambord, Usse, and Chenonceau. Inspiration also came from the classic Walt Disney animated feature Cinderella. Six hundred tons of steel were used in the framework. There are 10 towering spires on the castle. Contrary to myth, the castle cannot be, nor has it ever been, dismantled in the event of a hurricane. Inside Cinderella Castle, space for an apartment for the Disney family was designed & built inside the castle's upper floors, but it has never been completed or used. Finishing touches to the castle included Cinderella's mice friends carved into decorative columns and the Disney family crest in stone above the breezeways. What's inside the castle? A shop selling glass & crystal ornaments, & a restaurant Cinderella's Royal Table (formerly King Stefan's Banquet Hall). A series of mosaic tile murals adorn the walls in the entry corridor. The murals, designed by imagineer Dorothea Redmond and executed by mosaicist Hanns-Joachim Scharff, tell the story of Cinderella in five 15-by-10-foot panels.

Golden Pony

Date: 5/2005
Location: King Arthur Carrousel, Fantasyland, Disneyland
Comments: The gold horse signifies that the carrousel is one of the original attractions present on Disneyland's debut in 1955. The attraction was remodeleed and relocated in 1983. It underwent another major overhaul in 2002.

The Lone Cypress

Date: 12/2003
Location: Inside Main Entrance, California Adventure
Comments: For those not familar with California, this section of mosaic found at the entrance to California Adventure, features the Lone Cypress on Carmel's famed 17 Mile Drive. Often mistaken as the Monterey Cypress, this tree is one of the landmarks found on the Monterey Peninsula, just down the road from the famed Pebble Beach Golf Course and historic Cannery Row. The mosaic is also adorned with a native California Sea Otter.

Piecing California Together (from The Great California Adventure, Imagineering Disney's California Adventure & The Disneyland Resort; 2001)

"Containing more than 12,000 pieces of hand-crafted tiles, the entry wall - a "Postcard from California" - captures the images of numerous California icons including LAX, Catalina Island, the redwoods, and San Francisco's Lombard Street and Chinatown. Each tile was cut from clay, baked, hand-painted and glazed (this includes using 14-carat gold paint). According to vice president, executive designer Tim Delaney, the Bulgarian couple who made the 12,000 tiles numbered and lettered each one so they could be put together by Imagineers on site.

"When the english letters ran out there was some type of bulgarian coding," says Tim. "We started to panic because if anything happened to those two people we would be lost in a sea of tile big enough to fill a football field."

Thankfully, the jig saw puzzle of tile was completed and has carved its place as of of the largest hand-crafted tile murals in the world."

It's a Jungle out there

Date: 5/2005
Location: Jungle Cruise, Adventureland, Disneyland
Comments: One of the original Disneyland attractions, the Jungle Cruise begins with a Colonial outpost centered deep in Adventureland. This attraction is also home to some of the corniest jokes on the planet. Where else can you see, "...those lions protecting that sleeping zebra." The most dangerous part of your journey? "The return to civilization!" I love the details that are laid out in the line for this attraction, which include a telegraph station and a variety of maps and expidition trinkets.

It's a Small & Colorful World

Date: 12/2003
Location: Small World, Fantasyland, Disneyland
Comments: If you've never been to Disneyland during Christmas, seeing Small World lit up like this is worth the trip alone. The holiday lighting from this vantage point is one of the most impressive views in the park. You're bound to find more people checking out this view, than in line for the attraction.

Coast to Coast Peoplemoving

Date: 12/2003
Location: Main Street, Disneyland
Comments: This window was dedicated to long time Disney employee Dick Nunis on June 28, 1999. Nunis's career with The Walt Disney Company spanned 44 years. Dick was getting his masters degree in Education from the University of Southern California and needed a summer job. He got a job as an hourly orientation-training instructor shortly before the opening of Disneyland on July 17, 1955. In 1961, after serving at DL in a variety of positions, Dick was named director of park operations, and in 1968 he was promoted to vice president of operations. Dick became executive vice president of Disneyland and Walt Disney World Vacation Kingdom in 1972 and was named president of Walt Disney Attractions in 1980, a position he held until his promotion in 1991 to Chairman of Walt Disney Attractions. On May 26, 1999, (his 44th anniversary with The Walt Disney Company) Dick officially retired as chairman of Walt Disney Parks & Resorts. He served on The Walt Disney Company Board of Directors from 1981 to 1998 and in a director emeritus role through 2000.

The window reads: "Coast to Coast Peoplemoving, World Leader in Leisure Management, Dick Nunis Proprietor Started 1955, Offices Anaheim, Orlando,Tokyo. Wave Machine Specialty"