Balloon Festival

It’s not everyday you get to nab a few balloon shots. I happened to be passing by and had the lens cap off so I snapped a few shots of them setting up.

Someone had to go up. How else are you going to know which way the wind is blowing? We picked cloud 9. A one man balloon we has to sacrifice to the wind god.

As he stepped away for his picture he remember he left the gas on. Didn’t take long to fill this bad boy.

It may have been a bird or a plane or maybe another balloon. I don’t know I was taking a picture of them.

I think they had some room for a few more colors on this one.

Given the fact the clouds had pretty much blocked out the sun I felt some help was needed on the color. Way cool.

Would you fly in this? Oh yeah, the clouds are real. No Photoshop here.

This was cool. Of course the only way to see it was to hop in the basket.

Look closely. This boy is in a wheelchair and flying a balloon. Kudos!

Yeah, he did crawl out of his wheelchair and into that balloon, I pulled the wheelchair out of frame. He is hitting the burner to get the balloon upright.

The basket is custom made – experimental as you can see. It is a two-seater, with a single strap to hold you in.

As I rode up with the boy he hit straight propane to give me some awesome looking flames. He also said that he runs straight propane while traveling over top of wildlife – he said it is quieter and doesn’t startle them.

Not bad once the sun comes out.

Grabbed a few more setup shots.

Let me know if you liked any of them.