Thursday, December 08, 2016

Rescans For Gifted Children

It's time for some rescans of old slides that deserved a second chance. Like this first one, originally posted in 2008. My restoration efforts were OK, but not great.


This new version looks so much better! What an amazing shot, as seen from the Tomorrowland Skyway station. I love the way the buckets diminish in the distance, with Holiday Hill and the Yacht bar. Way off to our right is the site of Frontierland Station as well as the home of the Junior Autopia.


Whoo-ee, this one (first posted in 2007) is so grainy! And it still shows traces of the magenta tone that overwhelmed it before I attempted to fix it.


Here's the new version - much better. I have some fancy Photoshop filters to reduce grain, and now the water looks greenish-brown like it's supposed to. This is the only photo I've seen showing what appears to be a tiny tilled plot of land, ready for some corn to grow.


9 comments:

Nanook said...

Major-

I don't think it's possible to get enough images of early Disneyland. Thanks for your efforts at continuous visual improvements.

I can't recall ever seeing that tiny tilled plot - or as Lowell Thomas intoned while narrating The Flight Across America from This Is Cinerama "...between each city - the tilled land..." (They must be different types of cities here in "The Happiest Place On Earth"). Over at Daveland, he has an almost-identical shot of that area - however lacking in tillage.

Thanks, Major.

TokyoMagic! said...

They should have put some kind of crop there along with a settler face down in the middle of it with an arrow in his back. Wouldn't it have been fun to see a dead settler around every bend of the river?

Nice rescans today, Major!

Scott Lane said...

Nice rescans but pretty sure you mean Fantasyland Station, not Frontierland Station in the first pic.
Never saw that plot of fallow land, either.
I'm with TM - more dead settlers! At Halloween they can become walking dead settlers.

Alonzo P Hawk said...

That plot of land is for the very first crop of Disneyland Churros. I'll bet you didn't know they were grown onsite.

Is it just me or is that Sheriff John in the green skyway bucket? If the hat was a little more yellow I would expect to see Curious George somewhere close by.

Great rescans Major. Thanks.

K. Martinez said...

That queue is practically empty of America's future drivers.

TM!, I want to see dead settlers floating in the water as we pass by in our Canoe or Keelboat. "Look folks! Looks like we've got a couple of floaters in the river today".

Thanks, Major.

Unknown said...

I like the tunnel just visible in the background of the first shot. The new Living Desert would have been just on the other side. Lovely shots, Major; one can never have too much early Disneyland, as Nanook put it.

TokyoMagic! said...

Scott and Ken, Walking dead and floaters! Ha, ha! Maybe at Christmastime, they could stick a few of them up in the trees!

Major Pepperidge said...

Nanook, thanks! Yes, that is the only photo that I have ever seen that showed the little cornfield. I’d love to know the story behind it.

TokyoMagic!, they should put dead settlers in every attraction, especially “It’s a Small World”.

Scott Lane, I can’t believe I typed “Frontierland”!

Alonzo, Churros were developed by Monsanto, after all. Sheriff John… I vaguely remember him. Didn’t he try to sell carrots??

K. Martinez, who knows, in those early days, they might have actually considered a few “floaters” for Frontierland. In a 1955 LIFE article, it is mentioned that inside Sleeping Beauty Castle, “…Disney plans a torture chamber”. Good times!

Patrick Devlin, I think (?) that Casey Jr. passed through that tunnel. But yes, the Living Desert was very nearby.

TokyoMagic!, even if they just did it at Halloween time, when it would seem most appropriate! I’m jealous of Tokyo Disneyland’s much more gruesome Halloween.

Unknown said...

Major, I think you're absolutely right. There was a pretty short little tunnel there on the back stretch but I don't think now that's it. I like being wrong 'cause then I learn...