Bristol Balloon Fiesta 2015

It’s been a few weeks since the last blog post, due mainly to a wonderful trip to Canada.  Before I start to process the 700 photos from there it’s time to share these with you, just ten photos from the Bristol International Balloon Fiesta.

In 2015 the Bristol Balloon Fiesta celebrated its 37th year, and although I used to live close by this was my first visit.  The hot air balloons do an early morning and late afternoon ascent on each day, and wanting to guarantee good photos I opted to check the weather and head there for the afternoon and evening.

The weather was perfect for taking photos, but it drew in people in their masses.  The Fiesta is a free event, and it got so busy that Bristol city centre became gridlocked and the organisers had to turn people away.  I’d heard an estimate for 250,000 visitors, and it’s by far the most people I’ve ever seen in one place.  It explains why it took me nearly three hours to get out of the car park after the event – I hope for better traffic management in 2016!

The majority of the balloons were a normal shape, amongst them balloons from Cameron BalloonsBailey BalloonsBristol BalloonsVirginthe Royal Navy, and Loughborough University.  The stars of the show were the penguin shaped balloons from Fly Penguin.

The afternoon ascent and gentle wind gave balloons the chance to take off and drift towards the city and Clifton Suspension Bridge.  After sunset the night glow started – tethered balloons firing their burners to light up the sky.  And to finish some fireworks.

I’d have liked to have gone up in a balloon to get some photos from the sky looking down but didn’t get the chance.  When I was a child my father worked with someone who was on the team that flew Richard Branson and Per Linstrand on the first transatlantic hot air balloon flight in 1987.  I had the chance to go in a hot air balloon with them, and at the last moment got scared and decided against it.  A decision I rue to this day.  I will fly in a hot air balloon one day!

Westonbirt Arboretum in the Autumn

Now that autumn has arrived in the UK, it’s a great time to spend some time outdoors seeing how nature responds to the change of season.  An arboretum is a great place to see nature and, of course, take photos too!

So I recently went to Westonbirt Arboretum with fellow photo blogger Sheila Morris (you can see some of Sheila’s photo’s on her blog) to spend a few hours getting photos of the amazing colours and wildlife.  Westonbirt is a very large place, and even with all the crowds we saw at the cafe, once out in the woods there was plenty of peace and quiet to focus on getting the best photos.

For most photos I used the Olympus 60mm macro lens, which allowed me to get in really close for detail in some of the photos below.  It’s probably the first time I’ve used the 1:1 mode on this lens, which meant that I physically had to move towards the subject to get it in focus.  But when you get it right, the results are outstanding.