Okay so I was reaching a bit for the title.. I wanted something snappy, and it was all I could come up with. If you look at the first picture.. if you can even recognize it after my experiment with perspective (it's the film hydroponics area at Living with the Land, where I previously posted a picture of a hidden Mickey in the lettuce), you'll notice that it's not taken from the perspective of the boat ride. Last Summer I took the "Behind the Seeds" tour of the greenhouse. I highly recommend it as among the best bargains of all the special tours that you can take at WDW. $12 for adults. In truth it's the only one of their special tours that I've taken (too many of the big expensive tours forbid photography, I'm sorry but if I'm paying $100 to get a behind the scenes look I want some images to remember it by). You get to see the sorts of techniques that they're theoretically developing at the greenhouses of The Land, but.. I kind of suspect that they mostly do the same thing over and over again as a show for the ride. But they do have world record holding plants there, and I'm very interested in their hydroponics applications, especially the film method. The tour description says you can "sprout seeds in your pocket" and then take home to grow them, I didn't get that.. but they gave us all the plans to build a simple hydroponics system, complete with lists of suppliers where you can get the needed chemicals. I'm very interested in hydroponics, I've had an insane, irrational desire to build a hydroponic setup in my basement, growing plants completely artificially with grow lites and such.. I can't explain it, except perhaps that it relates to my fondness for such futuristic concepts. And I wasn't the only one. Another member of my tour group (the same one who had suggested that I try eel sushi) was looking to try aeroponics, and kept pressing our guide for information on the type of nozzle they use for their spray system. For me though, aeroponics always seemed like too much work. I mean, you can't take a behind the scenes tour at MK and learn how to build animatronic figures in your very own garage. I thought it was so neat that they gave me step by step instructions on how to take my first steps into the world of hydroponics. So anyway, the pictures. The fact is I hate bananas. They nauseate me. But somehow I've found myself fascinated by the pictures I took of them. Especially 1621, it looks so moody, something about it makes me think film noir, except for the whole bright color issue. This is a rare occasion where I find myself liking something that's not loaded with ooddles of sharp detail, instead going for creamy smooth bokeh and lots of nice green tones. Plus it gave me a chance to break out the velvia action. I tried to limit it, I didn't want to turn them into neon green bananas, but I wanted at least some extra punch in the whole color area. I've been looking for pictures to post for weeks. I never thought to check my bananas.. but for some reason tonight they caught my eye.
Great story & photos, Dan. I haven't done any of the tours either, because of the "no photography" thing.
