Uptown Jewelers in the Magic Kingdom

The Uptown Jewelers store glitters at night on Main Street USA in the Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World.

I actually have quite a few photos of this store, because it is one of Laura’s favorite places to shop on Main Street USA. Sometimes, she finds some things, and sometimes she doesn’t. And while she is looking, I usually take the opportunity to walk out to Center Street (which runs perpendicular to Main Street) and get a photo or two of the area. Nothing wrong with her shopping there, of course, because I have shops that I always like to look in, too. So it’s all good.

This time around, we stopped in on our way out of the Magic Kingdom after the fireworks had ended. The crowds out on Main Street were pretty thick, but Center Street always seems to be empty in those times. One of the advantages of a dead end street, I suppose.

Do you ever wonder what the people that you don’t know in your photos are saying or thinking? Do you ever like to make up stories about them. Here are some possibilities:

• Man in green shirt inside shop: “If they don’t have any cool ‘Frozen’ jewelry here, maybe there’s a Downtown Jewelers on the other side of the street.”
• Woman on bench: “We have been here all day, and we have never left Main Street. I can’t believe he is still looking at that map!”
• Man on bench: “I could have sworn the map said that this was the place for ‘Uptown Funk’.”

Okay, so maybe that wasn’t what they were thinking at all. But you never know.

There is gold and a multitude of jewels, but knowledgeable lips are a rare treasure. - Proberbs 20:15

About the Photo

This was one of those quick shots as I was trying not to get too far from Laura. Because have you seen those crowds on Main Street at night? A long exposure using a tripod would have been ideal here, but I didn’t bring a tripod with me, not wanting to have to keep up with it all day or store it in a locker for just a few photos at night. So instead, I just opened the aperture to f/1.8, set the ISO to 1000, and held steady for a 1/25 second exposure. I hadn’t even given any thought to the people sitting there until I was going through all of my photos from the trip a few days later. But I like what they add to the photo, because buildings often need life to make them seem more real.
A single RAW exposure, processed in Photoshop. Read more about the photo software and gear I use at the camera gear page.
Camera: Olympus OM-D E-M10
Lens: Olympus M.Zukio 25mm f1.8