"Fantastically Fun" Foto Fridays!

Two things by way of a preface before I even begin!

• This is by no means meant to start an iPhone vs. DROID debate!
• I love alliteration; if you don't, the title of my segment might just annoy the heck out of you

Okay, now that the business is taken care of, let's get to the good stuff!

People who have been reading Days in the Park are probably already familiar with our "Almost" Wordless Wednesday concept. We stroll around, take some random photos of anything we think might be remotely interesting, and post them. We take it a step further though and only use our cell phones to capture these weekly photos. I have a DSLR, but to be honest, I've never really enjoyed lugging it around. I'd rather channel my inner-superhero, "Unencumbered Man" when I'm at The Park, and it's always been more fun for me to just run around without nothing but a jacket on, whipping out my cell phone at a gunslinger's pace snapping photo after photo. Not to mention I'm still a little bit chubby, and having that thing bounce off my belly for hours on end ain't all it's cracked up to be.

But therein lied my conundrum recently. My old camera was crap. Now don't get me wrong, I loved my DROID Incredible from the word "go". I've toted it around Disneyland for almost three years now, and it had only just started going a bit wonky on me, but let's be honest, I've never been overly impressed with the camera on it. The shutter speed on it was slower than the line to get on Splash Mountain on a 110º day in the middle of summer. This, of course, made it desperately difficult (alliteration - hah!) to get pictures of any value, especially at night. And if I tried to use the flash? I hope you like your pictures completely white with nothing else at all in them.

So when the time came to upgrade last month, it honestly was a decision about the camera for me. Personally, I can live with either a DROID or an iPhone; I'm techy enough to be able to appreciate both. So it came down to price, and when Verizon offered the 4S for $70 I jumped all over it. And I couldn't be happier that I did! OS aside (iOS v. Jellybean, or whatever tasty treat DROID is calling their OS these days), I've been so in love with the camera since I got it. Flash? Who needs it? And this shutter is fast! I mean, Toy Story Midway Mania line at 11:55PM fast. I can shoot standing still. I can shoot in motion. I can shoot in the dark. Shoot, shoot, shoot! Fun word, isn't it? The first weekend I took it to The Park, heck, the first day I took it, I took ~300 photos. Have I mentioned I love my camera yet?

Which brings me to today's post! We absolutely love our Wednesday segments because we can just have fun with them, so I've decided to expound on that a bit and bring some of it over to Friday. In the course of all our shuttering, some pictures are obviously better than others; that's just the nature of the game, in spite of whatever camera you have, iPhone or DROID. But there's always that one picture that just stands out to me in some way, and so that's what we'll be highlighting from now on on Fridays. With weekly trips happening again, there's always plenty to pick from, so you, our loyal readers, can look forward to seeing what we think is the "best of our best" on a weekly basis. Sound cool?

 I've lately become completely obsessed with the Mad T Party over at Disney California Adventure Park. I blame Amy completely for that. But be that as it may, as such, I've been taking oodles of pictures there over the course of the last few weeks. I take pictures of other things of course, but the last two weeks they've definitely been the bulk of what I've snapped off, and judging by my Instagram account, people seem to love them. So it only made sense to make this week's very first Foto something from said Party.

I was especially proud of this one when I took it. The picture came out clear as a bell in its original form, so I decided to take it a step further and zoom in a bit and use just a portion of it. I chose to cut off the Dormouse at his really cool boots strumming away on his axe, but the centerpiece of the picture is obviously Alice, as played by my favorite Cast Member in the role, Dani Kerry. It still looked pretty clear to me, so after a little foodling in my Camera+ app, what you see is what I got. The purple hues and white shining off the front of the stage contrasted with each other nicely, and something about the picture just stood out to me. The "Hazy Shade of Winter" ('Bangles' reference FTW!) thing it's got going on just sealed the deal; as the first one that jumped out at me and made me literally say out loud, "That's a good shot!", I present it here for you all.

Of course, things like this are pretty subjective anyway, and one man's favorite picture may be another man's toilet paper, but we plan on having fun with this regardless.

So! Let us know what you think! We'll be sorting through our pictures on a weekly basis and choosing one, just one, to feature on a weekly basis, and it will something different than what's included in our Wednesday posts, so be sure to check back both days for our picture posts.

What'd you think of this week's photo? Good choice? Nice as we think?

We'd love to hear from you!