Christmas at Disney Springs

Christmas Shopping

During our December visit to Walt Disney World last year, I was interested to see how they would decorate Disney Springs, the shopping and dining area of Walt Disney World. After all, that was the first Christmas season in which most of Disney Springs was complete. So we dropped by one night to check it out. And of course to do some shopping. Shopping is what Disney Springs is really all about, after all. You know those Disney folks need a little help making money, so we are always happy to do what we can.

Anyway, the largest Christmas decoration at Disney Springs was the large Christmas tree pictured above. This tree was found in what is known as the Town Center. Town Center is the newest part of the area now known as Disney Springs. It is interesting to me that it looks very much like many of the area outlet malls, but that is another discussion for another day. Back to the topic at hand, Town Center has large, wide walkways, so that makes it a good place for a large Christmas tree.

Personally, I like this photo because of how the palm tree swoops in from the left, almost as if it is pointing to the Christmas tree. You may know that I love palm trees, if you have been reading this site much over the years. So I like what the palm tree adds to this photo of the Christmas tree. It adds a nice touch to what would otherwise be a boring area of dark sky. Thank you, palm tree.

More Garland

Other areas of Town Center away from the Christmas tree have garland stretching over the street. That is somewhat similar to the Disney’s Hollywood Studios garland over Hollywood Boulevard in the previous post. Just a coincidence that two posts in a row feature Christmas garland here, by the way. But I did think the garland added some festivity to the area, especially with the lights on the garland at night.

If you are turned around, at the far left of the photo, you can see that the World of Disney store is down at the end of the street. That store has been a familiar landmark at Disney Springs since long before it was known as Disney Springs. Seeing it always helps me find my bearings, because some of the new stuff is still slightly unfamiliar so far. When I see that store, I have a pretty good idea of where I am. While it is not as tall as Cinderella Castle or Spaceship Earth, the World of Disney store can still be a helpful landmark, I suppose.

Whenever Disney builds anything new, it is always interesting to see how they decorate it for the Christmas holidays. I rather liked the somewhat simple approach that they used at this part of Disney Springs. Sometimes simple is good.

Interesting Thought

Time can be neither created nor destroyed. But it can easily be wasted.

Bible Verse

The people who live in darkness have seen a great light, and for those living in the shadowland of death, light has dawned. - Matthew 4:16

About the photos

For photos like these, conventional wisdom would say to use a tripod and a long exposure. But our main reason for being at Disney Springs was shopping and not so that Steve could take long exposure photos. That made for an easy decision not to carry around a tripod, because I knew that we had other things to do with our time. So I was happy getting the photos that I could get.

For these photos, I adjusted the camera settings to let in as much light as I could get while still holding the camera steady. That meant some slightly longer exposures than usual. The first photo had an exposure time of 1/25 second at ISO 800, while the second one had an exposure time of 1/30 second, also at ISO 800. Even with that ISO setting, there was a good bit of noise, especially when I turned up the exposure when reading in the Raw file. Fortunately, the Define filter in the Nik Filters helped to remove a good bit of that noise.

Take a look at the before-and-after comparison of the Christmas tree photo below. You can see that the final version has much more detail of the people on the street, the palm tree, and the sky. This photo would not have been worth sharing if it had not been for a good bit of photo processing.

Photo: A single Raw exposure, processed in Photoshop. Read more about photography tips, photo software, camera gear, and more at Steve’s Photography Tips.
Camera: Olympus OM-D E-M10
Lens: Rokinon 7.5mm f/3.5 Fisheye Lens
Date: December 18, 2017
Location: Disney Springs, Walt Disney World, Florida