Last Friday I joined my friend Jo’s family for a trip to the first evening of the Vernon Winter Carnival to an event called the Hot Air Balloon Fiesta and Glow.
Vernon’s advertisement for the occasion says, “The winter carnival has been going since 1961 and for the past 22 years we have run the Hot Air Balloon Fiesta.” The event-filled 64th Winter Carnival began on Friday and carried on for ten days to end on the next Sunday.
We all packed into their SUV to make the just over and hour drive to arrive just as the hot air balloons were being stretched out so the burners could be directed to make the balloons rise.
The crowd was already gathering and I expect that by the time the balloons were inflated that crowd easily reached a hundred cheering people.
I brought my 16-35 mm lens and a tripod expecting to get some shots of the air-born balloons. However, to my disappointment the “Fiesta” ended when the five balloons were inflated, but not airborne. I really expected to see the balloons float off. However, it was a very foggy evening and I am sure the pilot’s visibility would have been poor.
Oh well, I was there for the photo-op and figuring out how to get good photographs was fun. At first there was a crowd of people circling me and I needed to find a way to get some photographs. Then I spied an area where snow was piled high. There were parents and their children slipping and sliding as they climbed the frozen snow. I had my tripod and that worked perfectly as a climbing staff to get up to a place where I could stand and see the balloons over the crowd.
There were others trying to stand beside me and I even grabbed the back of a child’s coat to keep him from uncontrollably sliding down the hill. He looked at me, I think, wondering whether to be thankful or scared of the long-haired old man that was holding him. I handed him to his mother and went back to figuring out how to shoot the balloons.
Although I prefer using the viewfinder on my DSLR this was a time when the camera worked best on Live View. Live View means I will be looking though the LCD on the camera back. Viewing it that way I could stretch my hand with the camera way out and around the other people precariously standing on that slippery snow peak.
As the light dropped I kept increasing my ISO 3200 and was able to get plenty of good photos of the air balloons and I would release the shutter anytime the balloon crews fired their burners.
It was a colourful event even in the dense fog. When the balloons were completely inflated the crowd surged forward and I could see several photographers running up to get close ups of the crew, basket and burner.
I am sure there will be some Kamloops photographers that attended showing their photos on our local Kamloops Photographer’s Facebook page. I am looking forward to seeing those.
I would have liked to see the balloons rise into the dark night sky. Nevertheless, I had a good time making photos.
Italian writer and journalist Italo Calvino wrote, “You only have to start saying of something: ‘Ah, how beautiful ! We must photograph it’ and you are already close to the view of the person who thinks that everything that is not photographed is lost, as if it never existed, and therefore in order to really live you must photograph as much as you can, and to photograph as much as you can you must either live in the most photographable way possible, or else consider photographable every moment of your life.”
Stay safe and be creative. These are my thoughts for this week. Contact me at www.enmanscamera.com or emcam@telus.net.
