Red balloon

Well I knew that it would be another good day "tomorrow"! This morning our breakfast was interrupted with a drama in the sky that just had to be photographed - but I will only include three of the dozens of shots I took - they tend to look very similar in great numbers!

f/8 1/100sec ISO160 35mm

Where I live is a popular holiday location, the Gold Coast of Australia. As can be expected, there are many different activities that people can do in this vibrant place with an almost perfect climate. (We complain when we don't get enough rain and the tourists complain when it rains in their week!) One of the activities is hot air ballooning and many times we look out in a morning and see two or three in the distant sky.

f/8 1/640 ISO160 70mm

The wind must have been wrong today because the balloon we spotted was less than a kilometer away from us. This is not good because our house is on the edge of the hills that fringe the Springbrook Mountain and there would be only a few places tree-less enough for a balloon to land and collapse its fabric without it getting caught in fences and three branches if it came west.

f/5.6 1/640sec ISO 160 270mm

So I was outside watching and photographing and feeling for the pilot who was straining up and down to capture a breeze to take him back to safety. The balloon was almost down to the ground at one point and came back up again - maybe the pilot saw that there was not enough space in the park where I walk my dogs and up he went fairly high and managed to catch a tiny breeze that did take him eastwards and the last I saw of this red balloon was it coming down not far from where it took off at six thirty. Two hours of flying time and only a couple of kilometers covered!

AJ