Epcot’s Flower & Garden Festival is already one of the most visually overwhelming places you can point a camera. So naturally I thought: what if I made it weirder? That’s how I ended up walking the park with a roll of Lomography LomoChrome Purple loaded into my Canon AE-1 Program — and it was one of the best decisions I’ve made as a film photographer.

I’d been curious about LomoChrome Purple for a while. The promise of foliage going purple, blues shifting toward teal, and warm tones cooling down is either completely appealing or completely off-putting depending on your sensibilities. For me it was immediately appealing and Epcot’s festival, with its hundreds of flower displays and manicured gardens, felt like the perfect testing ground. My favorite subject is flowers so I knew this would be the perfect experimental film to try.

The famous flower carpet near Epcot’s entrance — stripes of orange, pink, red and gold blooms with the trees going fully purple. Canon AE-1 Program, LomoChrome Purple.

What Is LomoChrome Purple?

LomoChrome Purple is a color negative film made by Lomography, available in 35mm and 120 formats. It’s designed to mimic the look of discontinued infrared-style films — the kind that render green foliage as purple or magenta, push blue skies toward teal or olive, and shift warm skin tones cooler.

Crucially, it isn’t true infrared film. The color shift is baked into the emulsion chemistry itself, which means no special filters, no unusual handling. It’s a standard C-41 color negative — just a very unusual looking one. Load it, meter it, shoot it.

Why the Canon AE-1 Program?

The AE-1 Program is my go-to camera for days when I want to shoot a lot and think a little less. In Program mode it handles both aperture and shutter speed automatically, which freed me up to concentrate entirely on framing and moving through the park. Walking Epcot all day is tiring enough — having the camera make the exposure calls meant I could focus on finding compositions.

That said, I did dial in some exposure compensation when shooting into brighter backgrounds. LomoChrome Purple responds well to slight overexposure — it opens up the shadows and makes the color shift richer — so I pushed it half a stop when the scene called for it.

Spaceship Earth against a LomoChrome-teal sky. Left: wide with purple palm trees. Right: up close with the geometric panels. The cool shift on the concrete panels gives the structure an almost alien quality.

Shooting Flowers at Epcot: What I Found

The Flower & Garden Festival runs every spring and fills Epcot with elaborate garden beds, topiaries, and floral installations across the whole park. For a film photographer it’s almost too much — every corner has something worth shooting. LomoChrome Purple made it even more so.

The flower beds and close-ups

This is where the film earns its reputation. Orange zinnias stayed warm and vivid while the foliage around them turned a deep, bruised purple — the contrast is startling in the best way. Flowers that were already pink or magenta in real life became almost luminous. White blooms took on a faint cream-gold cast with near-black leaves around them.

An orange zinnia against the festival planting — the green leaves have fully shifted to deep purple. This is the color contrast LomoChrome Purple was made for.

Celosia torches and zinnias in the World Showcase gardens. The warm orange blooms hold their color beautifully while everything green disappears into purple.

The beds of pink gerbera daisies were a gift for this film. Vivid blooms, purple stems and leaves, and that signature teal sky above.

The garden paths and atmosphere

One of my favourite results from the roll was a wider shot of one of the World Showcase garden paths — trees completely transformed to purple overhead, layers of orange and pink and red flowers below, and two guests walking through it all completely unaware of how surreal the scene looks on film.

The World Showcase garden path — trees turned fully purple, layers of blooms in pink, orange and red below. One of the frames that made me want to shoot another roll immediately.

The monorail

I didn’t set out to photograph the monorail, but when it glided past the festival flowers with that teal sky behind it I had no choice. The LomoChrome color shift turns the white monorail slightly pink-lilac, and the teal-green sky makes the whole thing look like a postcard from a retro-future that never happened.

The monorail above the festival flowers. Teal sky, purple-tinted concrete, pink blooms below — this frame perfectly summarizes what LomoChrome Purple does to Epcot.

The butterfly house

The festival’s butterfly garden was a challenge to shoot — fast-moving subjects, dappled light — but occasionally one would settle long enough to get the shot. This monarch on a basil plant is probably my favourite frame from the whole roll. The purple-shifted bokeh background with the bright red wings somehow feels like a painting.

A monarch butterfly in the Epcot butterfly garden. The orange wings went red-pink on film; the background shifted to deep purple bokeh. One of those shots you don’t plan, you just wait for.

White impatiens in one of the World Showcase beds — the leaves went almost black-purple, making the white blooms glow. A quieter frame that shows the film’s range beyond just vivid color.

A shot of me taken by my friend to show how LomoChrome purple reacts with skin tones.

Tips for Shooting LomoChrome Purple

Spaceship Earth through the festival gardens — purple trees and agapanthus in the foreground, the familiar dome floating above. A frame that only this film could make.

Final Thoughts

Epcot’s Flower & Garden Festival and LomoChrome Purple were, it turns out, made for each other. The sheer density of color and organic shapes at the festival gives the film exactly what it needs to do something genuinely strange and beautiful. I came home with a roll full of images that look like no other place I’ve photographed — even though I’ve visited Epcot dozens of times.

The Canon AE-1 Program was the right camera for the day: reliable, light enough for a long park walk, and easy to use reactively when something like a butterfly lands right in front of you. If you’re planning a trip to the festival and you shoot film, I cannot recommend this combination enough.

If you’ve been on the fence about LomoChrome Purple, consider this your sign. Load a roll and find the nearest garden.