Maleficent, Mistress of All Evil ~Joanie Eddis-Koch

Unfortunately, like many things at Walt Disney World lately, the meet and greet portion of the Disney Villains’ Dance Mix and Mingle has been eliminated. I however was very lucky to get the opportunity to capture our gal Maleficent with the Castle in the background after the show in October of 2013. Usually she has people posing with her but I could not resist the chance to capture her all alone with that fabulous background. She caught on to what I was trying to do and in the brief 2 minute encounter she very coyly posed for me, always staying in character. Being the devil that I am, I tried to trash talk her and get her to smile for me… but alas she would have none of it!

Shooting in these types of situations is a very high pressure encounter because you only have a very brief window of time to try and capture something special. Having your camera set up in advance is essential for success. Don’t be afraid to take test shots of the people who are interacting with the character in advance of your turn. This is really the only way to make sure that the camera is set up correctly. When you are shooting all the events at the Halloween party you are running around like a chicken with out a head! You barely have time to move from the parade, to the stage show, to the fireworks, to the Haunted Mansion, back to the parade and oh I forgot about the Cadaver Dans over in Frontierland! All of these shooting opportunities require changes in your camera set up so it’s really easy to screw things up and forget that you left the camera in bracket mode and that important picture you took is on it’s way to being deeply underexposed.

For my gal Maleficent here my Nikon D4 was set to 1/250 of a second at f 2.8. The metering was set to spot so I could properly expose that glamorous green sour puss of hers and the ISO was set to 8000 in Auto ISO mode, which comes in handy because you never know what kind of lighting situations you are going to find yourself in with these character meet and greets. I was using my 24-70mm Nikon f 2.8 lens which happened to be set to 56mm. I was cognizant of the fact that the closer I got the more likely I would get the bokeh on the Castle that that lens is capable of producing. I wanted enough so that Maleficent would be featured but not too much that you wouldn’t realize that she was standing in front of the (wrong) Castle. I paid strict attention to the angle of the shot so I could be sure to get some of the iconic features of Cinderella’s Castle in behind Maleficent.

I really love this combination of Maleficent and the Castle. Cinderella better watch out because if you ask me, I think The Mistress of all Evil was making dog eyes at that Castle, and THAT is never a good thing ; )

~Joanie Eddis-Koch

https://www.flickr.com/photos/marlton-mom/