We've had an unusually warm September so far - in fact it hardly rained, and there were days where the temperatures soared to around 30 degrees...pretty unusual! It was good for me though - I got to enjoy more time outdoors, go for flower shows (finally made it to the Araluen tulip festival too!), chill out in the sun...and I think I have accumulated plenty of pictures already, from various flower shows.
Today - I'll be posting pics from the Northam National Ballooning Championships - taken before we had the unusual (yet awesome) warm days. Probably the craziest photography trip I've ever done! The night before that epic day, I drove over to my friend's place to stay the night and prep the camera equipment...and on that day itself, we got up at 3am to drive to Northam! No kidding - 3am. It was pitch black outside and super cold...and my friends and I were going with a group of photographers. We were given walkie talkies and all - so that none of us would get lost.
I pretty much slept throughout - when we were driving to Northam. And I really salute my friend for having the courage to drive in the wee small hours of the morning...even after having maybe 4-5 hours of sleep the night before! We ended up in the Northam airfield, where we were told to follow vehicles with numbered baskets - to get to various spots where the balloons' launch points were. And we ended up in this spot here. Check out the balloons being prepared for launching!
It was still pretty dark - and even up till now I can't believe we actually drove there before 5am in the morning to watch balloons launch. One tick off my bucket list - I actually watched sunrise! Bonus points for watching it in the countryside.
Got really excited when the first balloon was prepared for launching! All of us were literally glued to our cameras - watching the balloons being prepared and finding the right exposure and all...and here are some of my favourite pictures. These were all taken before sunrise!
By the time we finished taking pics of the balloons launching, someone came to tell us that the balloons were making their way back to the airfield. And the balloon chase began! Immediately after keeping our equipment, we began our journey back to the airfield, and along the way I took some pics of the hot air balloons in flight. There was this long line of cars in front of us - and all we did was to follow them. Pretty easy!
We ended up back at the Northam airfield - where we first started off. Managed to get a good spot near the airfield (after the crazy car chase), and I got pics of some of the individual balloons flying in. Even UWA sent a representative! Oh yes - and the 'twin' blue balloons were piloted by a husband and wife team - each person in one balloon! Really cool how they matched their hot air balloons.
The lighting was also pretty good - and thank goodness it didn't rain till much later in the day, when we were making our way back to Perth. If I'm not mistaken, these pics were taken at around 7am in the morning.
Close-up pic of one of the balloons. Yay for the rainbow colours! :) Some of the balloons were tourist balloons - apparently there're regular hot air balloon rides during the spring and summer months for tourists staying around the area. Sounds fun - but not my cup of tea. I'd prefer watching from the ground.
Spectators watching the balloons come into the airfield. Lots of people ended up driving to the airfield to catch the balloons flying in. We did too - and ended up at quite a good spot.
Spotted this adorable doggie while packing up my camera, and so out came the camera again! She was quite willing to pose :) Can't remember her name though, but she was so adorable! She seemed to like our company.
Ending off this post with a sneak peek of the canola fields! Check out how beautiful (and yellow) they are! It was really impressive - fields after fields of golden yellow flowers! I took at least 100+ photos of the canolas, close-ups included! More to that in the next post! In fact, I ended up going to the canola fields twice - so you'll get to see how the fields look like when the canolas are fresh, and while harvesting is going on. I'd love to go back there again next year - the canolas were so beautiful. Stay tuned!
