The Happiest Place on Earth

My happiest place on Earth is definitely Disneyland.  The first time I went to Disneyland, I was 3 months old.  XD  My dad is part of this Disney group called NFFC (National Fantasy Fan Club) and we used to go to conventions a lot.  A lot of the artwork in my house are Disney cells from various movies and old collectables that my dad has found over the years.  I remember going to Disneyland a lot when I was growing up (at least 2-3x a year) and it is about a 6 hour drive from where my family lives.  Everyone in my classes knew me as the Disney girl and everyone looks to me to know the Disney trivia.  XD  Going to Disneyland now, makes me nostalgic and remember the fond memories I have of going with family and friends.  I used to hate roller coaster types, but now I am obsessed.  hahaha.  I think my favorite Disneyland ride is probably Indiana Jones.  Or perhaps Big Thunder Mountain.  I also REALLY like Haunted Mansion at Halloween till Christmas because it is Nightmare Before Christmas themed.  Some of my favorites growing up where Alice in Wonderland and the Submarine ride (now the sub ride is Nemo themed and is super cute!!).

I went over Super Bowl Sunday to Disneyland and shot my photo assignment there.  We had to do pans (where the subject is sharp, but the background blurry), blurs (the subject blurry, background sharp) and depth of field (having the background out of focus).

Pan shot/ can't you just feel the motion?

Blur shot/ teacup mayhem!

Selective Focus/ I LOVE the expression on the guy's face.  This is when he was flipping the girl during the parade.  :)

I also really like these things that are called "circles of confusion."  My teacher is really into them and likes to point them out every time he sees them.  =P

Lights look like this when you open the lens opening VERY wide and keep the back out of focus.  These look really cool right?  Here are a few other pictures that I really like the way they turned out.

A little bit of Disney magic.  :D  

Submarine view  ^_^

It might be a little hard to tell, but that's a girl there.  :)  this is while the teacup was spinning.

This was hard because the only light on her face was from the back of her camera.

The carousel spinning.  :)

Anytime I go to Disneyland I love taking pictures and trying to make the things in Disneyland look less recognizable.  Can anyone tell where this is (this was taken with film and printed in a darkroom)?  It's one of my favorite places to go in the world!  :)  Disneyland is a place that will always make me happy, and I hope that when I have kids, I will be able to give them amazing memories at this place too.  ^_^

The Alice Hype

>Fashion and Alice always go hand in hand<

So with the upcoming Alice in Wonderland movie, the "alice hype" is on the rise again!  I notice that it comes and goes every once in awhile, but now that Tim Burton is putting his twist on the story, I bet it will stick around for a lot longer.  Growing up I always loved watching the Alice in Wonderland (disney version of course) and wanting to go to wonderland.  haha.  I always wanted my own moneraths.  XD  They were super cool how they made an arrow to have her follow the path.  A lot of the people I talk to say that the movie scared them when they were growing up, but I found the movie always entertaining.  I loved the singing and would sing along with a lot of the songs.  XD  I think my favorite parts of that movie were the scene in Tulgey Wood and the Walrus and the Carpenter song.  For some weird reason.

I remember when I was in middle school, before the latest thing were it's "cool" to own a Mac (I grew up with them my whole life) I saw a game called American McGee's Alice that you could actually play with a Mac computer!  Many game fans know that mac's are never really game friendly.  Anyways, at that age, I thought it looked really scary and something my parents would have not let me play.  :(  So I never got a chance to play the game.  Apparently it is out of print and SUPER hard to find.  People are selling it on ebay and amazon for $120+!!!!  =O  Looking back now, I think this would be an awesome game to play!  The storyline is that Alice is a teen, and all her family is killed in a tragic fire.  She ends up being schizophrenic and Wonderland is suffering because of it.  She has to go back to save Wonderland.  Everything in Wonderland is a bit twisted because of her new personality, which makes it sound all the more devious.  I've tried a lot of different ways to get to play the game, but no such luck yet.  Maybe someday they will remake the game now with the even bigger Alice following that is to come this year.

A few years ago I stumbled across a book called The Looking Glass Wars by Frank Beddor.  In this trilogy, it starts off in Wonderland where we find out there is a girl named Alyss Heart.  She is a young girl with a very strong imagination and her parents are the rulers of Wonderland.  Her mother is the most powerful imagination expert in the kingdom, but she has a sister named Redd who was banished because she was into using dark imagination.  The premise of the book is that Wonderland is real, and (without spoiling things) Alyss ends up in England were a man named Lewis Carroll is the only man to listen to her life story (everyone else just laughs and tells her to grow up) and eventually writes the book Alice in Wonderland.  Young Alyss is furious that her story was completely botched and begins to slowly forget her past.  The series is 3 books and has a comic called Hatter M.  What is really cool is that Frank Beddor takes ALL the Alice characters and puts twists on them.  For instance, the wise tutor of Alyss is Bibwit Harte (if you re-arrange the letters it is White Rabbit) and the commander of the royal guard is Hatter Madigan (the mad hatter).  The Cheshire Cat is actually a humanoid assassin and Redd is scheming to steal Alyss's rightful place as future queen.  This series was super clever and I hear they are planning to make a movie soon.  :D  Unfortunately I think the movie will be overshadowed by the Tim Burton version and people might call copycat.

In the line of movies, Marilyn Manson is directing a movie called Phantasmagoria that is loosely an Alice story.  Apparently it is a movie about Lewis Carroll and the part of him will be played by Manson himself.  I think the movie is supposed to be about how Carroll is going mad in his home and is seeing visions of a girl named Alice.  Sure Marilyn Manson is considered weird and rightly so, but I recently saw an interview he did and he is actually quite an intelligent person.  I am VERY interested in this movie and can't wait to see what he comes up with.

All in all, Alice fever has swept up again, but I think people will always have a fascination with weird stuff like Wonderland.  Sure there are a lot who like it for the acid-trip type experience and what they can do with drugs, but for some it's just childhood.  I own a SUPER old copy of the original Alice and Through the Looking Glass books, and I am starting to read them now.  I've always wanted to be an Alice for Halloween, but it's hard to find a normal looking one without being too slutty.  XD For now,  I'll stick to my nice DSK Wonderland bracelet.  haha.  This story will always have a close place in my heart, and no matter how popular this series is going to get (it can't get any worse than twilight  XD) I will stick by it.  :)  Anyone else a big Alice in Wonderland fan?  Anyone else waiting for the new movie to come out?