Photography has been very productive for me lately.  I’ve been taking photos of landscapes, nature, and lots of different subjects.  It was time to branch out and try something a bit different.  Thankfully, I found just the right new subject matter for me: hot air balloons.

Every year, Panguitch Utah holds a balloon rally.  Since we had some family business in the area, it was a perfect time to stop in and get photos of the many balloons which come for the event.  There are lots of different balloons which come for the balloonfest.  So, we had ample opportunity for getting good hot air balloon photos.

There were dozens of balloons out in the farm field each morning.  That is where they ascended into the sky each day.  There were mostly versions of the traditional hot air balloon present but there were a couple of character balloons as well.  Smokey the Bear and a very colorful owl made an appearance in the skies each morning.

While I didn’t get good shots of every balloon which took off from this year’s balloonfest, I did get photos of several of them in different groupings.

It was a very different take from normal for me.  I had to shoot photos during the harsh direct light of early summer mornings with no clouds.  There were, however, contrails cutting through parts of the sky where the balloons were floating.  So, I squeezed in a couple of shots with the different modes of air travel juxtaposed against each other.

Once the bulk of the lift-off was done, we wandered out of the farm field where they were launching the balloons from.  That was not the end of my photos though.  I happened to see a couple of good opportunities to shoot photos of the balloons with an interesting foreground as well.

Adding the landscape or the playground and ball-field in front of the balloons created a very different kind of photograph for the hot air balloons.  It also added a sense of scale.  You can tell that some of those balloons are really quite high up there in the sky.

Overall, shooting pictures of hot air balloons was a welcome change of pace from my normal landscape and nature photography.  I might try some of this photography again if I get the chance.

Have you been to a balloonfest or a hot air balloon rally before?  What balloons did you see there?  Leave your answers in the comments below.  I’d like to get a good idea of what other kinds of hot air balloons I could potentially take pictures of in the future.

Check out some of my subsequent hot air balloon photography using this link.