night shots

So a quick update since it's 2:30am and i should realy go to bed.  Going back in time a bit, in the beginning i had all morning shifts, since I only knew how to set my camera for day shots, and also how to work in Test Track.  Test Track started off fun because you got to see everyone's photo's and hear them talk about their ride.  A month later, it's tedious.  I imagine I will be super excited to be placed there when it's stinking hot outside, but until then, it's annoying.  I'm not sure if I touched on why, in an earlier post, so I'll just briefly mention it's because you always have the same issues (im remembering now that I did mention it, so I'll just move on).
Night training came and was really fun.  We were trained in how to work in the Camera Store (called the View) where people come in to look at their photo's, buy photo's, buy CD's and combine multiple cards onto one.  We were also trained on how to find lost photo's, which can be a bit hard.  It's really easy if someone comes in and knows that they had a photo taken with, say, a certain character and they know what time. Other times I get, "Well I was in France around...2 I think? Maybe 3?" So then we go in and look at ALLLL the photo's taken in France during a certain time. Sometimes it's in a 2 hour window, and that's a lot of photo's.  Most of the time I'm just redeeming gift certificate's for free photo's that people get if they have a Disney Visa credit card.
Night shots.  Hmm.... How do I feel about night shots? Night shots are not as creative as the ones you take during the day. We don't zoom in, it's a set shot, and we can't do magic shots. Also, the shutter on the camera is open longer to grab the light in the background (so Spaceship: Earth shows up) so we have to tell people to hold really still, which can be difficult with squirmy children (or intoxicated guests who can't stop swaying, lol). Also, in the dark is when you can have more camera issues if the light sensor doesnt' have enough light to focus on someone. This can happen if everyone is wearing dark colors. The camera doesn't focus and you feel really silly not being able to take people's photos. It's even funnier when I ask them to hold their hand up over their shirt, hoping that the camera will focus on the hand, I hold the shutter button down, then have them put their hand down before taking the picture. Does that make sense? I just need a contrasting color for the camera to work, but if the camera isn't that great, then nothing helps. Today I had a bad PDA so it wouldn't scan the photopass cards, and then after I swapped it out, the camera sensor stopped focusing for like 15 minutes, and would randomly work.  Some people got pictures and some I had to turn away. I know a couple people had out of focus pictures because QA (quality assurance) sent me a message saying so.  At that point I was just glad the camera was taking pictures, but it eventually resolved itself.
I'm only working 31 hours this week which is kind of sad so I'm going to try and extend my shift tomorrow, even just for an hour. Tonight I worked Entrance 3, Entrance 2 and then in the View.  The cp's that arrived in January are being charactere trained next week but not the February cp's. :( Hopefully that comes soon so that I can get a better variety of shifts.
Until then, enjoy this shot of Japan from World Showcase. Having been to Japan (Kyoto, Mt. Fuji, Tokyo and Nikko) I know what a beautiful place it is and am really saddened by what happened. (edit: The earthquake and tsunami happened this day)

45 minutes after this was taken, a HUGE storm came through. Lightening and pouring rain. Oh, Florida...

This is a photo of Kinkakuji Temple in Kyoto, Japan (not world showcase)