Saturday 14 January 2012

Early Morning Balloon Ride....almost

Farm in Didmarton at Sunrise
My husband and I were up at 5:30am this morning. OK, I fell back to sleep and we didn't actually crawl out of bed until closer to 6am. We were out the door just before 7am defrosting the car to follow my friend Liz out to this field in Didmarton for an early morning Balloon ride with Chris Hathaway of David Hathaway Transport. She was going on the ride, not us, we were watching her munchkin and taking photographs. 

What a beautiful sunrise this morning, with red streaks across the sky, was all I could do not to insist we pull over and stop so that I could photograph it all. Lucky we got to the field and I caught the end of it...or the beginning, as it was the sunrise. It wasn't as dramatic as we saw on the trip up, but still a nice sunrise I think. It was also very very cold and frosty! It was -3.5C (25F) outside when we left the house. 

The David Hathaway Transport Balloon being filled with air 
A peak inside the Balloon
The munchkins got to go inside the Balloon! 
It's quite huge inside the Balloon
Turning the burners on to heat up the air inside the Balloon. They let the munchkins out first of course. 
The Balloon beginning to rise
Sadly it was warming up quite fast causing lot of mist to rise from the ground., even though the skies above were clear. If they can't see the tree line they can't take the balloon up. They have to be able to see where they are and what's below them when they go up. 

The David Hathaway Transport Balloon
Heating up the air inside the Balloon
Balloon with the sun rising behind it
Up Up and Away!
The visibility just wasn't any good, so with the Balloon tethered to the Land Rover, they took the munchkins up for a little ride. Sadly the visibility was getting worse not better so they called it quits. 

Preparing the Balloon to bring it down
Frosty Misty Morning
I felt really bad for everyone who were invited to go up and were involved on this flight which was canceled in the end. A bit of a let down but not a total loss. It was a beautiful morning, we got to get up close and personal with the Balloon, the munchkins got to go for a little ride and they got to walk inside the Balloon! Oh and I got to take some exciting photographs of the whole thing! I'd say it was a pretty cool morning all around. Literally! 

I think it's nap time now. 


Photographic Information: Camera used was a Canon 5D II. Two lenses were used, Canon 24-70 f2.8 L and a Canon 70-200 f2.8 L. A variety of camera settings were used. A Manfrotto monopod was used with the 70-200 lens. 

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