On December 4, 2004 Walt Disney World’s EPCOT launched a whole new way for guests to record their memories in the park. It was the birth of PhotoPass, a service offering a team of trained photographers to capture photos of your family out and about in the park . . . for a fee.
15 years later, Disney’s in-house photo service spans all of Disney’s theme parks and resorts, capturing hundreds of thousands of images daily, which can then be purchased as prints and digital copies.
While the idea of capturing “Disney memories” wasn’t foreign to the company, there were a lot of challenges that couldn’t be solved with mere pixie dust.
“For a while, we had Kodak photographers in the parks,” said Jeff Harmon, a manager at Disney Photo Imaging at Walt Disney World resort, in a phone interview with DisneyExaminer. “But we wanted to make the simple act of capturing photos into a Disney experience.”
In other words, they wanted to have Disney cast members, who were already trained in giving great customer service, be the ones telling guests to strike poses in front of Cinderella Castle. “It’s much more than just taking photos. These are moments that people will cherish forever, and that takes our touch,” said Harmon.
Another reason why Disney used Kodak photographers was because of the lucrative multi-million-dollar deal the company had with Kodak. The expiration of that contract paved the way for Disney to experiment with their own camera technology.
Harmon continued, “We had built a digital infrastructure that no one else had to be able to deliver and share photos with guests. It would get us ready for what would come today.”
In 2012, Disney PhotoPass launched digital downloads, allowing guests to purchase all or select photos they had taken at Walt Disney World via app or website. They could also continue to viewed and print photos while still at the parks. Those options continue to this day.
Like any industry, as demographics change, the way we enjoy photos changes as well. According to Harmon, that is why PhotoPass gives guests the opportunity to not just print photos, but make those photos into custom photo books and even place those photos on items like mugs and t-shirts.
However, as photo sharing becomes increasingly instantaneous and shared by millions through social media, Disney PhotoPass is adapting. In recent years the service has been offered as an add-on or benefit to various park tickets and annual passes.
Another way PhotoPass is adjusting to the times is by offering new digital-only photo capture experiences. For the 15th anniversary of PhotoPass, Walt Disney World offered the “Super-zoom Magic Shot” which utilizes a custom lens to captures a full photo of you and your background which then gets transformed into a 10-second video that zooms in on you first, then a wide shot of your surroundings, then back on you. “It’s perfect for Instagram,” said Harmon.
While many of these PhotoPass anniversary experiences are only exclusive to Walt Disney World, Harmon says that the teams across the globe will be getting their own unique variations of the opportunities at some point as well.
There’s a uniqueness to having many of the advancements for PhotoPass come from and then stay at Walt Disney World, however. On a recent visit myself, it was obvious how much the PhotoPass opportunities and cast members made on guest experience. Whether it was taking a photo at Be Our Guest restaurant before sitting down for a meal, or the automated ride cam photo/video capture on Space Mountain . . . PhotoPass is EVERYWHERE at Walt Disney World.
For a company that pioneered memory making, PhotoPass was a logical fit for the parks and for guests. And the service continues to evolve with automated photo spots, on-ride photos, automatically syncing photos to your account via MagicBand, character locations, animated overlays, Magic Shots, Memorymaker plans, and who knows what else they’ll come up with next.
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Let’s Hear From You
Can you believe PhotoPass is 15 years old? What are some of your favorite PhotoPass opportunities? Is there a feature you’d like to see Disney add to the service? Anything you Disneyland fans are jealous that WDW has that Disneyland doesn’t? Let us know in the comments below.
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