The 2010 Albuquerque International Balloon Fiestawas held last week, and as chance would have it someone had planned a conference in Santa Fe at that very time. What a scheduling coincidence! The workshop even had Tuesday morning off, should we be tempted to drive the hour to Albuquerque that morning (which I was…). There is, alas, no such thing as a free lunch and the sessions continued that evening until 9:30 pm. Science waits for no balloons.
I also attended Saturday morning prior to catching my flight home. Words of advice: Get there early (5 am!) and go on a weekday. Saturday was far more crowded, which made moving amongst the balloons more difficult. Tuesday had better weather, as well, although I’m fairly certain that was a coincidence… Some clouds in the distance provided much needed background, and the winds were calmer. By contrast, on Saturday morning the wind was blowing briskly, and the balloons rapidly left the area, making it far more difficult to capture the enormous numbers of balloons in a single shot.
I put my favorites on the first page, to save any visitor here having to step through too many photos. Most of the decent shots came after the sun rose above the mountains – the colors were too flat to be interesting prior to this. The long shadows of this shot, which I was only able to capture on Tuesday, worked nicely as well. Saturday I also managed to capture a couple of close-ups of the balloonists in flight, using my telephoto. I had to wait for them to get some distance away, and not too high, so that the angle appeared close to eye level.
Nothing too outstanding, but tons of fun, and highly recommended. Click for gallery.
