How to take pictures of yourself

Are you the designated photographer in your family? Do you feel like you view your entire trip through the view finder of your camera? When you look through your vacation album do you notice a distinct lack of you? If so, then you need to know about Disney's PhotoPass service.

With PhotoPass, Disney photographers will take your picture. They will give you a id card with a 16 digit number on it that allow you to retrieve your photos later on. The id's are small dog-tag like and come on a slikeyesque braclet so they are easy to keep with you even in the water parks. The photographers are stationed all over the parks especially in the "Kodak spots." You will rarely have to wait for a photographer. The nice thing is you can get your whole party in the picture. They will even take a picture with your personal camera! Sometimes they will even add some special magic like putting Tinkerbell, Stictch or Tigger in your picture with you.

When you are all done, you get all the images on a CD. And you own the pictures. This is very important. Unlike wedding pictures or many school pictures taken by professional photographers, you can make copies, put them on web sites or do what ever you want. These are just like you took them yourself.

Most of the people I've asked have said they get well over 100 pictures and that the photographs were so much better than anything they could take. Many said they got over 300 pictures using this service. Only a couple felt like they didn't get enough pictures to make it worth the cost. So what is the cost? Well, it currently is $129.00 but, if you pre-purchase the CD it's only $99.00. So if get 100-300 pictures it's not a bad deal. If you only get 25-50 pictures then it's not such a great deal.

Here are some tips if you use PhotoPass:

• Write down your PhotoPass id(s) or take a picture of them
• Write your initals on your PhotoPass id so you know the photographer gives you back your id
• If you pre-order the CD, save the e-mail. You'll need it when you get back.
• Your photos are only kept for 30 days, so order your CD as soon as you get back from your trip!
• Pictures from rides such as Splash Mountain, Tower of Terror, etc. are not available on PhotoPass (the only exception that I know of to this is Test Track)

For more information and to pre-order your PhotoPass CD to to http://www.disneyphotopass.com/