Nostalgia & Progress: 50 Years of Walt Disney World Photo Project

 This is my first attempt at an organized, thought-out photo project, and I’m super excited to dive into it. To understand this, you’ve got to understand that I’m a Disney Geek. My family went to Disney when I was growing up quite a few times. My parents took the Lovely and Talented Lisa and I to Disney World as a graduation from college present. Lisa and I have taken John as often as we could, and have instilled a love of Disney in him as well. Disney to me is all wrapped up in the best aspects of nostalgia, but at the same time the fun of it still comes from its constant change as they push the boundaries of what is possible in immersive entertainment. But that’s getting away from the point, I was talking nostalgia.

I remember most of the trips we took to Disney well, some less well, and one not at all, because I was not quite two. Some of what has kept these earlier memories so vibrant is the photos my dad captured along the way. I have my dad to thank for much of my love for photography. He always had a camera, and he had it out at not just the “special” times, the birthdays and holidays and vacations, but at the regular times. Looking back on those photos, the ones of just random weekend car rides and everyday stuff mean the most. Most of our life is not holidays and vacations, right? He definitely took the camera on vacation, too, but he took his “regular times” eye with him, I think. There are posed photos in front of things that represent where we were of course, but there are also others that just seem kind of random. And I love them. 

Dad shot on slide film and those early slides of our earliest trips to Walt Disney World have come under my care. I’ve scanned them all, but still have a screen and projector that, as far as I know, still work. The look of slide film, and I think this was specifically Kodachrome, just says “childhood memory” to me. I went looking through these old Disney photos when we decided to make a trip for Walt Disney World’s 50th birthday. I gift to thinking how different it looked then, but at the same time how much the same. Nostalgia and Progress were in those images. 

I got to thinking it might be cool to try to recreate some of those photos, to go to the same places and seek the same angles and framing and see that mix of nostalgia and progress. But I didn’t want to step in too much as the photographer. I think that taking those photos with a modern DSLR would be just jarring, and probably say more about the change in technology over the last 50 years than the story of nostalgia and progress I’m trying to tell. So I bought a 35mm slr film camera that was made in the mid to late 60s, something that might very well have been carried by the tourists during those first years. I can’t get my hands on Kodachrome any longer, it’s not been made in over a decade, but Kodak did re-release another slide film. It’s not the same look, but slide film is distinct from negative film and I thought this would get me closest. 

I’ve gathered 15 images from dad’s collection, only two of which feature me or my mom. They are scenic shots, and some of them a bit random. I asked my dad why he was taking photos of the rest rooms on Tom Sawyer Island and he said he had no idea. But he did, and so will I. I’ve chosen images of places I am fairly certain I can get to and put myself in the same spot as dad. I’ve checked Google Earth and pinpointed as best I can where he was standing. I feel like I’m ready.

A truly epic view of the restrooms on Tom Sawyer Island, from, I think, the fort. 

That’s me in the red overalls and yellow shirt. I may have someone else shoot this and try to ride that horse again. 

I began this thinking it was a tribute to Walt Disney World. But the more I look at these photos and the more I think about it, the more it becomes a tribute to my dad. Thinking about him walking around the Magic Kingdom with my mom and little me, camera swinging on his neck, shooting things that struck him reminds me of just how much he has given to me. And when I think that just a few years before he was walking around the jungles of Southeast Asia armed with much more than a camera, well, I just hope that someday I can grow into the kind of man he is. 

I hope this works out like I’m envisioning it. It’s a little squirrelly working on film and not knowing until you get photos back from a processor what you’ve captured. But I have high hopes. I mean, it’s Walt Disney World, it’s the Magic Kingdom. I feel like Walt would approve.

One big difference will be the missing Sky Ride. 

Pinocchio Village Haus doesn’t really look any different today

That Old Time Film Look

 Ever have an idea in your head of something, creatively, that’s you’d like to bring to life and you sort of bumble your way towards that idea without really knowing if you’re on the right track or not until all of the sudden exactly what you’d been hoping for happens? That’s the feeling I got when these photos appeared on the first roll of color film I developed myself.

I bought the Petri 7S rangefinder camera I used because I wanted to try a rangefinder camera and because I had this notion of recreating the sort of vibe of the vacation photos of my childhood. Having seen how the old folding Brownie produced photos that just have the feel of 100 years ago, no matter what the subject, I thought getting a camera from the early 70s might do the same sort of thing. 

This idea was brought on at least partly by Walt Disney World’s 50th birthday. We are incredibly happy that Lisa and I will be joining a couple friends in the Magic Kingdom on October 1st, the actual 50th anniversary of the park’s opening. I thought it would be fun to bring back photos of the event that had the feel of photos taken 50 years ago. 

So after running a roll of black and white through the Petri and finding that it seemed to be working just fine, I ordered some Kodak Gold 200, a pretty classic-looking consumer grade film, and headed out to see what I could do. Luckily, I live at a vacation spot so taking “vacation pictures” with my old camera and vacation film wasn’t a challenge. 

We headed out to the pier because nothing says vacation like the beach, right? I love the top of these two photos above, but the beach photo was the one that let me know I’d bumbled right into completely nailing what I was after. That could have been taken in 1972. I am so happy.

This is also the first roll of color film I’ve ever developed myself, and it turned out great. I’ll write another blog about the process, but it wasn’t hard at all. And it gave me all of this!

I even tried a few portraits, because what are vacation photos without the people? Focusing the rangefinder close up is weird and takes a bit of time and practice. I’m finding that the exposure meter in the camera is pretty trustworthy, though. I couldn’t be happier with these photos of the lovely Miss Lisa (before and after her first post-plague haircut).

That top one really has me excited. The light coming in is great without blowing out and the out of focus background is just perfect. Managing to get the Petri 7S version with the 1.8 aperture lens is going to prove fortunate, I think. 

Over all, I’m super excited. This little camera will be just what I wanted and I think the Gold 200 will be perfect. I have a roll of Kodak’s more pro-grade color film in there now, so we’ll see how that turns out. It is supposed to give more realistic colors, but that isn’t what I’m looking for in every case. Figuring out which film is right for which project will be a fun experience.