It's a very small World, after all

Walt Disney World, as seen through the special effect of miniature imaging


What if you could take the entire, 47-square miles of Walt Disney World and shrink it down to the size of, say, a ping-pong table, and then photograph it up close, in miniature? That's the effect I was looking for while working with a nifty digital photography editing app called Snapseed.

Snapseed takes the dizzying array of effects, filters and options available in big applications like Photoshop, and distills them down to a manageable selection of creative special effects, all with a remarkably simple interface.

Tinkering with Snapseed at the Team Florida 360 Research Center (my desk), I produced this photo gallery using a combination of editing filters, including "Tilt-Shift", to simulate miniature, model-sized-looking effects from actual scenes I've photographed at Walt Disney World over the years. By blurring foregrounds and backgrounds in Snapseed, I was able to mimic the shallow focus often seen in traditional mini-macro photography. When applied to the famous vistas of Disney World, the end result can create a startling, unique change of perspective: making Disney's great big world appear as a very small one.

To see my video of the quirky, miniature views at Walt Disney World, click here.

To see my photo gallery of the miniature views at Walt Disney World, click here.

Click here to learn more about Snapseed.

Joe Burbank is a staff photographer for the Orlando Sentinel. He can be reached at jburbank@orlandosentinel.com.


Joe Burbank can be reached jburbank@orlandosentinel.com. Follow the Sentinel photo staff on Twitter @OSPhoto. Like us on Facebook: Orlando Sentinel Photography.