Waiting a Long Time for Nothing...

The Big Country Balloon Fest is one of the coolest events Abilene has every year. Maybe it's just my boyhood obsession with flight, but this event is really cool... when the wind doesn't blow. I know, it's kind of ironic, a hot air balloon which uses no form of propulsion can't fly in windy conditions. But, anything over a couple miles an hour (I think it's five, but not totally sure) and the wind is blowing too hard for it to fly. And, considering, that's kind of what West Texas is know for, it's pretty funny these things ever get up. But they did, and the two previous mornings, plenty of balloons went up, however, I wasn't assigned to shoot the event those days. So, when I got up at 6:30am on Sunday morning and got there and no one was getting their balloons out, I started to get nervous. So I sat, waiting... waiting... waiting... I was told the balloon pilots were having a meeting and hoping the wind would die down. After almost two hours the wind had died down, but no one was going up. Finally one brave balloon pilot started to go up, I ran out there and got a few shots of them getting ready to go up, but with only one balloon it just wasn't all that great, then I got back to the office later in the day and found out this is the same balloon that ran 2 days earlier. Oh well, there's always next year.

Full of hot air...

The only thing that contains more hot air than a politician? Why a hot air balloon of course, ok it may be a toss up. This weekend was the Big Country Balloon Fest. One of the coolest assignments I ever got to shoot was a ride in a hot air balloon a few years ago. It is one of the most surreal feelings in the world, no wind, no noise, just total calm. Then you come back down to earth and hit pretty hard and it's over. But the time in the air makes it all worth it, a lot like life in general.

Well, I didn't get to go on a balloon ride this time, in fact I didn't even have a whole lot of time to spend out there because I had to shoot it before a football game that wasn't even going to be close, so I couldn't be late or the chances of getting a shot were not good (Not that what I got was anywhere near spectacular, but that's beside the point). Anyway, although I didn't get to spend as much time out there as I would have liked, I am happy with the shots I got despite only having about 45 minutes to shoot. The light was nice as the sun was going down, so it gave me pretty light and nice long shadows. The only other thing I would have like to have gotten to shoot would have been the balloon glow at dusk, but I was too busy with other work-related stuff to get out there. Oh well, there's always next year.