Hot Air Balloon, a photo from New Mexico, West

Photographer's Note

Hot Air Ballooning
Taos, NM

I had the opportunity to go for my first hot air balloon ride last weekend in Taos, New Mexico. New Mexico is famous for its hot air ballooning, so it was a perfect place to try it out. I will be posting a few images from our trip in the comming days.

Two balloons took off together near the Rio Grande Gorge. Here, the other balloon is being filled with air prior to take off. The man holding out the balloon is one of the riders. They first used a fan to pump in air to fill the balloon, and will fire up the burners soon to raise it. Unfortunately, at 6 am the sun was quite harsh as you can see from the image.

AdrianW oznaczył to zdjęcie jeko użyteczne

Critiques | Translate

AdrianW (2274) 2008-05-21 18:40

Nice work Amber! The dutch tilt adds a little excitement to the composition, and in theory the strong backlighting should make those colours really pop too!

You've done well to keep the exposure balanced, as there's both strong light and deep shadow in the shot. As is fairly common I feel the shadows could benefit from a little warming; if you're using Photoshop try applying Image/Adjustments/PhotoFilter Warm-85 at 50% or so to a new layer and knocking out the sunlit parts. I think I'd be tempted to use a little Shadow/Highlight to darken the highlights a little too.

I might also be tempted to save with a little less JPEG compression; as the sky seems to block up when I apply Shadow/Highlight to it. If you're reworking this version of the image, you could just blur the sky a little.

Overall a commendable effort, particularly considering the tricky lighting :)