Cliffs of Mo’ara

The first time you see Pandora - the World of Avatar at Disney’s Animal Kingdom, you can hardly believe your eyes. Strange sounds surround you, exotic vegetation emits smoke without warning and mountains (more like large boulders) the size of buildings seem to float in the air. Whether you have seen the movie Avatar or not, you don’t need experiential reference for this section of Animal Kingdom to be a sensory overload — and that is during the day! At night, the entire area is bathed in blacklight and everything glows with bioluminescent-type details you cannot see during the day. In some ways, it feels like a whole new area, dark and mysterious and waiting to be explored,

As with several of my night shots, I got lucky with the moon. I took this picture in several frames, moving around to get the right angle. While I don’t think I was ever really happy with the angle, I was able to capture the light and some of the depth of field. When I went in to edit, none of the edited versions looked right. Everything I tried distorted the picture too much and made it feel like it wasn’t this spot, on this night, with this lighting — so unedited it is.