Capture Your Moment: Epcot Italy

As a photgraphy geek, slight narcissist and lover of all things photo, the Capture Your Moment photo shoot has been on my to-do list for a bit. I fully intended to wait until we had a full group of eight, but I finally bit the bullet and decided that my 39th birthday in Walt Disney World was the occasion. We absolutely LOVED our Hollywood Studios session, so I decided to give it another go at Epcot a few months later during spring break.

What is Capture Your Moment?

We are big fans of PhotoPass and love that with the service, everyone, even shutterbug mom, gets in the photos. Capture Your Moment plusses that and gives you your own private PhotoPass photog and assistant (for crowd control and creative) for a 20-minute shoot in the park.

What do you need to know?

Reservations are highly recommended! Magic Kingdom sells out quickly, but I was able to grab Studios about two weeks prior to our December trip. Additionally, I noticed Epcot reservations available the day before during spring break.
You can inquire on the day of at the PhotoPass shop in each park for availability if you weren’t able to get a reservation.
Currently, the cost is $99 and includes the shoot only. Photos are included in Memory Maker and/or can be purchased individually. This was a sore spot for me, as it was quite a bit lower at debut, but this was completely worth it for us.
You will check check in at the PhotoPass podium at the American Adventure for Epcot shoots instead of the PhotoPass shop.
You and the photog can discuss any ideas you have for locations, groupings, celebrations, etc. S/he will also let you know of any areas off limits (Galaxy’s Edge, for example) in the park.
Once you’re ready, the clock starts and you can strike a pose!

Capture Your Moment Epcot with Magic, Memories, Mayhem

The Review

If you made your way to this review from our Hollywood Studios shoot, you’ll see that we were gaga for that experience and it was most definitely “worth it” for my crew!! Our Epcot experience didn’t garner the same enthusiasm, unfortunately, and I may not have rebooked another shoot had the Epcot session been our first. No hate to the team we had during the second shoot, but after the amazing experience and results of the Studios shoot, this one fell short.

Italy, in my mind, had the biggest variety of backdrops for our 20-minute session, so we decided on the Italian pavilion when we arrived at the check-in podium. We gave the lead photographer the same basic ideas for groupings (some individual, some whole groups, some just kids, etc.) during the shoot with the addition on a celebration sign for Mo’, as her 7th birthday was a couple weeks later.

As far as specific spots in the pavilion, I wanted to take advantage of the Isola area (near the water), as well as some of the flowers in place for the Flower and Garden Festival. Aside from that, I was open to suggestions from the team. While they had a few “secret spots” for some nice, crowd-free photos, they weren’t nearly as creative as our Studios team. I would normally have spoken up, but I wasn’t sure the direction the shoot was taking, and I didn’t want to miss out on something fantastic they knew of but I didn’t. Next time, I will definitely be more adamant about some must-do shots. We only ended up with one near the water and zero near the atmospheric gondolas or using the bridges.

To celebrate Mo’s birthday, a letter board sign was brought to commemorate “7 Magical Years” which was a sweet touch and a nice option to use as decor at her birthday party. On the flip side of that, about half of the pictures were singles of little miss. While I absolutely adore looking at pictures of my princess, the photos were not very, well, varied. Most were just changes in angles of the same poses. I did speak up and ask for some singles of the kids, at least, as the pictures at this point were only singles of Mo’ or group shots with everyone.

The poses across the board were very typical of the standard PhotoPass shots. Any variation was really our own doing or under my direction (once I realized we weren’t necessarily working with the same level of creativity we had at Hollywood Studios). Positioning of people in the photos was non-existent, and many photos look unbalanced. I can say we’ve had general PhotoPass photographers who were a little more inspired.

All of the photos were posed, at least in the sense that she didn’t capture any candids during the shoot. These are often my favorites, so I was bummed not to see them. We even had a pretty funny moment with a cast member who didn’t realize we were taking photos and walking into the background then ended up posing with me. However, these didn’t make it into the mix, either.

It seems like maybe this team didn’t have as much experience or photography knowledge. There are a lot of lighting and shadow moments that could have been avoided. Attention to detail was really lacking, as you can see trash or other distractors in the backgrounds of some pictures. Composition was pretty hit and miss, as well. You’ll see several of the images below are tilted but not necessarily in the artistic way.

All that said, we did end up with some nice pictures, and they even let my uncles jump into a couple of group photos when we ran into them in the pavilion. Again, I probably wouldn’t have booked a second session so excitedly had this been our first experience, but now I’m a little invested in seeing if the Studios team is just a standout, or if our Epcot team was just tired that day.

The lead photographer did ask at the end of our session if we wanted any other shots. We had used our twenty minutes, so I didn’t want to go over into someone else’s time. It was also raining on and off, and my hair was inflating by the minute. If the weather had been nicer and the kids less hangry, I may have pushed for more photos by the water.

You tell me! Take a look at our Studios session and compare them to these shots. Leave your thoughts in the comments on either post!

The Photos

Behind the Scenes