A photography enthusiast could spend a day at
Disney World’s Epcot Center just pursuing different compositions integrating Epcot Center’s iconic Spaceship Earth and Glass Pyramids into photographs. I didn’t go that far, but I did look back at the monstrous sphere periodically while in the park to size up new composition possibilities.
I came upon the one leading off today’s post on the stroll exiting the park during a late May 2021 visit. I’m not contending it’s my best of the day; I just liked how the foliage framed the sphere.
As for the glass pyramids ... well, I got less than a handful of shots of those. But I lucked out on getting two or three that I was fully satisfied with. An example is immediately below. While the colors might strike you as a bit excessive, I did not add any saturation during post-processing. Disney parks are known for their bright colors, and the structures below the glass pyramids were no exception.
Epcot was still a year away from opening when I previously visited Disney World in 1980, so the park was new to me. The visit there was my favorite of the week, and Epcot probably is the only park I would have any serious interest in revisiting.
The volume of photographs I took there reflects my interest in the park: While I took lots of pictures each day, on the day at Epcot I filled a 32GB SD card to capacity and had to use a second card. Fortunately, I made a point each day to bring along a spare card, and on this day, it proved to be fortuitous.
I enjoyed the variety of ethnic cultures represented at Epcot, and our group ended up dining at one of the Japanese hibachi-style sit-down restaurants at midday. It was a good meal.
Tickets to Disney attractions in the Orlando area vary in prices by the number of sites you wish to visit and the day of the week. You can explore the various options by following the link in the previous sentence. All of the attractions charge a separate fee for parking, usually $20 or $25.
As always, to view a larger, sharper version of an image, simply click on it. To view a full gallery of images from the shoot at Epcot Center, click on the link in this sentence.
The park had many Disney characters sculpted in vegetation and/or flowers, such as the one above which is near the entrance. There are also many floral varieties and displays there (you can see some of the ones I photographed in the full gallery). A closeup of one such bloom appears below.
Also near the main entrance are the Spaceship Earth and several plazas landscaped with glass monuments, flags and fountains as shown in the photos above and the first five below.
The Land Featuring Soarin’ (above), with the glass pyramids in the background. The two photos below were taken inside the complex.
There’s that Spaceship Earth again ...
Above: A fountain that some people sought out for relief from the heat. I managed to grab a shot where there was no human interference.
Above: It was fascinating to watch young folk explore these not-really-that-old telephone booths as if they’d never seen them before. But ... I’m sure in a lot of cases, they hadn’t seen many of them.
Above: There was a glare on this window display near the start of the England area, and the glare gave my Canon 6D fits, so much so that I could not find an angle where all the glare was absent. Amazingly, my iPhone succeeded where the 6D did not; I found this glare-free angle with the iPhone.
The United Kingdom area has an English tea garden behind one of its buildings. That’s where I took the photos above of a section of the garden, the next two below showing a gazebo and shrub maze and the third photo below showing a closeup of the tea set on a table inside the gazebo.
I believe the photo above also was taken in the United Kingdom area, while the perspective and closeup photos below were from the Canada/Native American area.
Above: Also near the United Kingdom and Canada displays is this floral sculpture of Captain Hook (left) and Peter Pan.
Above and first three below: I used the 300mm long end of my zoom lens for these across-the lake shots.
The shots above and below were taken on the other side of the lake, the one below in the Italy area.
We are in the Japan area now, with the pagoda above and our chef at the Japanese restaurant Teppan Edo doing his thing in the three photos below.
Above: This koi pond was across from Teppan Edo, where we dined.
Spaceship Earth again (above) and, in the six photos below, more shots from the back side of the lake.
Above: This dragon was one of the sculptures dedicated to the sundry Chinese zodiac animals. Each animal was represented, and the others can be found in the full Epcot Center gallery. The three photos below also were taken in the China area.
My oldest daughter, who still lives in Indianapolis, has recently gotten into tie-dying clothing, so I captured this photo of a full-family in tie-dye garb and sent her a copy as an FYI.
The Egypt (above) and Norway (first two below) areas. The Norway place depicted in the first photo below was a very popular attraction for kids to pose because of the vegetation sculptures of Anna and Elsa from the motion picture Frozen.
Above: I couldn’t help but grab this shot of a man with a Yoda backpack with a Yoda (or two?) doll stuffed inside it.
Above: It was getting to be late afternoon — you can sense the dramatic lighting — when I took this shot on the slow walk back to the exit and parking lot.
Above: An entertaining trio we passed on the walk toward the exit.
We noticed (in May 2021) that there was a plan to open an area (above) devoted to Ratatouille at some point later that year. Unfortunately, it wasn’t open yet while we were there. But there is a sculpture of the food aficionado rat (below) there now.
Coming up next: Lake Buena Vista: The Animal Kingdom at Disney World
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