The Poteau Balloon Fest has just launched a new website to promote the annual event.
The site Http://poteauballoonfest.com features my photography from past balloon festivals.
This years event will be held on October 22-23, 2010 at the Robert S. Kerr Airport in Poteau Oklahoma.
A Hot Air Balloon Festival is a great place to capture great photos, and I have some tips to help make your photos even better.
The festival actually offers several different photo opportunities all in one location
- Hot Air Balloons
- The Balloon Glow
- Mud Pit Race
- Carnival
Hot Air Balloon Flights
For photographing an event like this you need a selection of lenses from telephoto to wide angle. When the hot air balloons are flying the may be a long way off and the longer the telephoto lens you have the better shots you will be able to capture. Try to fill the frame with the subject, you do not need to have the entire balloon in the photo to make a great photo. By not having to much sky in your photo will also help to get a better exposure. Be very careful about watching the background, try not to have power lines or other distractions in your photos. Try and time your shots so that you can catch the balloon when the burner is on, the flames will light the inside of the balloon making it glow.
The Balloon Glow
To photograph a balloon glow you will be shooting in low light and want to use a tripod to keep the camera steady. Fortunately for us photographers they have the glow just at it is getting dark, this gives us some color in the sky and some light for capturing the environment of the event. The key to shooting the balloon glow is to shoot when the burners are on and lighting the inside of the balloon. The problem is that when the burner is on, the balloon is heated and will take off, not wanting to actually launch, the balloon pilots only fire the burner for a short time. If you are shooting multiple balloons, getting them all at the correct time can be a challenge, listen for the announcer to call for an “all burn” this is when for only a few seconds all the balloons will be glowing at the same time.
The good news for setting exposure is that if you have the balloons mostly filling the frame and some dark areas of sky, the auto metering of the camera does a really good job most of the time, due to large evenly lit surface area of the balloon.
The Mud Pit Race
The mud pit races at the Poteau Balloon Festival are a great place to catch some fast action photos. You will want to have a medium telephoto lens to be able to move in tight and stay a safe distance form the trucks. The key to getting great action shots of an event like this is to use a shutter speed that will stop the trucks but not fast enough to stop the spinning of the wheels. This will take some experimentation, but you will probably be shooting at a shutter speed of between 1/30 of a second and 1/120 of a second. If you have the ability to set your camera for continuous high speed shooting, now is the time. You will need to shoot a lot of pictures to get a few really great shots.
The Carnival
You can photograph a carnival during the day to capture the people and the food, but the excitement comes from shooting after dark and capturing the lights and color that draw us to them year after year. A tripod will keep your camera steady during the long exposures needed for night photography and it may be necessary to shot using a high ISO speed to stop moving people in a picture. This is a time when you will have to do some experimenting with finding the proper exposure, shooting in manual mode will give the most control. For photographing the moving rides you will want a slow enough shutter speed to catch the motion of the lights, for the booths and games will want to able to stop the action.
Gallery of Images
Great Places for Great Photos
Let me help you to find a great location for your next photography adventure. I will list many lesser-known destinations, as well as the famous "Icon Locations" for photography. I will provide photos (Lots of Photos), location information, consisting of what there is to photograph as well as other information about the destination. I will give costs, maps, directions, contact information, and other essential information for a successful photo trip. I will only post for locations that I have personally photographed to ensure a quality guide to great locations for photography. If you know of great places that are not posted, please send me the details, I may just decide that is a place I need to go!
Greg Disch is a freelance photographer located in Arkansas. Greg specializes in nature, scenic, wildlife, and other outdoor subjects in Arkansas and other areas of the country. Most of the images on this site are available for sale as prints, personal use, or rights managed stock photos.
Greg offers both classroom instruction and in the field hands on photographic workshops. Classroom sessions are normally held in Fort Smith Arkansas, but arrangements can be made to bring a class to your group.
All classes and workshops have small class sizes designed to provide an optimum student to instructor ratio, where you can get the personal attention, you need. Most classes and workshops are limited to a maximum of six participants and will be held with a minimum of only two.
If you are looking for a wonderful opportunity to get personal individual instruction, I do private workshops and classes at a location of your choice, whether doing a location photo shoot, coming to your home or business, traveling across the country on a road trip, or at my classroom. This is a fantastic way to learn digital workflow and be sure that your computer equipment is properly configured for optimum performance.
Thanks for the heads up on this. I never knew this took place. Thanks for the tips also.