Sunday, April 21, 2019

Too Dark Park

It's always a bit of a bummer when a batch of slides turns out to be way too dark. "Camera operator error"; what else can it be? 

It's too bad, because I'm always happy to see a good photo of Main Street USA, especially when the Disneyland Band is marching past. Sadly, this is not a good photo - if it wasn't for that blue late afternoon sky, I'd think it was after sunset. These slides are undated, but must be pretty early, since the guys in the band are wearing the short-lived dark blue uniforms.


Darn aperture, or film ISO, or... whatever! There's folks on some Pack Mules with Rainbow Ridge and a Conestoga Wagon in the background. It's kind of awful, but that's what you get here at GDB on a lazy Sunday.


10 comments:

Nanook said...

Major-

Clearly, these photographers were attempting delightful 'day for night' shots - but as is often the case with even the most-seasoned of cinematographers - the images failed miserably. Well, at least these images didn't contain nighttime "shadows" to muddy-up the images...

Thanks, Major.

Chuck said...

These pictures are so dark, the Band might actually be wearing white uniforms.

Happy Easter, everyone!

K. Martinez said...

It may be dark, but it does bring out the gas lamp even more. Is that some sort of crane in Town Square? Thanks, Major.

Happy Easter to all the GDB folks!

Major Pepperidge said...

Nanook, even with a director like Hitchcock, day-for-night shots were often terrible. I guess they had no choice but to put a blue-gray filter over the lens, but even as a kid I knew it was bad.

Chuck, Disneyland band members aren’t wearing ANY uniforms!

K. Martinez, I think that the “crane” is actually one of the power lines outside the park, you see them in a lot of photos, especially from higher vantage points.

JC Shannon said...

Oh sure, a really good shot of my favorite house on the hill, is too dark. At least the riders get to ride off into the sunset. I can almost hear Roy and Dale singing in the background. I remember all those blue filter night shots in my Saturday morning westerns, I wasn't buyin' it either. I agree these are early, I spy a woman in pedal-pushers. My mom used to wear them. Thanks Major and Happy Trails to all!

Anonymous said...

A reminder of those days of film...and never knowing how pictures would come out for a week or two. Yet isn't this from the constantly dimmer past? Seems fitting. KS

Major Pepperidge said...

Jonathan, I had no idea that the house on the hill was your favorite. There are probably lots of images of it on GDB (and elsewhere), but that is cold comfort on this day! After listening to a podcast, I learned that Roy Rogers’ birth name was Leonard Franklin Slye. Who knew! There are still pedal-pushers, but they might not be called that anymore.

KS, that’s one of the many things I love about digital photos. When I took certain classes in college, I’d have to rush my film over to a 1-hour developer so that I could use the prints for my project. It was no fun.

Anonymous said...

I have a feeling our photographer was using some kind of in-camera automatic exposure so it exposed for that sliver of sidewalk in pic 1 and exposed for the sky in pic 2 thus closing the aperture way down.

Major Pepperidge said...

Anon, you could be right! I am a lousy photographer, so I can't "throw stones" so to speak.

Melissa said...

IIRC I recently saw the DVD's of the 1991 remake of "Dark Shadows," and it seemed to have a lot of scenes with a vampire running around in broad daylight. I did some research and found out that the DVD's were simply transferred from the masters, without including the "day-for-night" filters that were used in the original broadcast.