Luxorious Balloon Ride

[Winston Mitchell]

While in Egypt last February, or group took a balloon ride in Luxor. Wonderful way to spend some early-morning hours.


First order of business...lighting up (click once or twice for larger).

Sony DSLR-A700: 1/25s f/11.0 at 35.0mm iso200


Flight: You can see the cruise ships lined up under their dense, sel-inflicted haze on the Nile's bank at Luxor. No other balloons in sight. On the other side, too many to count.

Sony DSLR-A700:1/2000s f/4.0 at 28.0mm iso800


The Pilot:

Sony DSLR-A700:1/250s f/4.0 at 55.0mm iso400

Packing up: As I watched the crew make preparations to pack the balloon, I sensed an opportunity. I found a relatively unobstructed view and started making exposures, hoping for a poetic moment. The choreographer showed up for one frame.

Sony DSLR-A700:1/500s f/4.0 at 28.0mm iso400

Thanks for looking,

 

[Cem_Usakligil]

Apologies for missing this fantastic series earlier!

Hi Winston,

This is one those cases which really makes me wonder about human nature. It is almost impossible that more than 100 people have seen these great pictures and no one has chosen to comment even briefly. So I hope we can as yet make it up to you for this great omission.

Firstly, I like the individual pictures but as a series with a story to it they are even stronger. The first one of the flame is a nice close up and graphically strong. The view on the Nile with the morning sun is a very nice picture, albeit a bit of a typical photo which is taken by many others in similar ways. This is not a critique, as I feel the same way about my own pictures taken at famous landmarks. Especially interesting are the "clouds" from the chimneys forming elongated shapes.

This brings me back to the final two pictures, which are the real winners in this series. The portrait of the pilot is very, very good, but I'd mask/dim the white distraction in the lower right hand corner. And the last one of the packers is also very good. This is work to them but they seem to be enjoying what they are doing.

Thanks a lot for sharing these and my apologies for not reacting earlier .

Cheers

 

[Mike Shimwell]

Winston

let me add my apologies to Cem's. I think the pilot protrait is excellent, only the distracting lower right is a problem (but now we have photoshop, no?)

I also like the first - rich colours always cheer me up and I don't see much fire photography.

mike

 

[Asher Kelman]

While in Egypt last February, or group took a balloon ride in Luxor. Wonderful way to spend some early-morning hours.


First order of business...lighting up....

Winston Mitchell: "Lighting Up" Sony DSLR-A700: 1/25s f/11.0 at 35.0mm iso 200​

​

Winston,

This is an interesting and attention-getting shot. The rising angle of red canvas above against darkness draws one into the flame. The lines pull our attention down to the top of the gondolas and the coiled piping. My only wish would for it to be taller, but right now, as it is, there's an excitement and a roar of the hot gases as the flames shoot up. One never has enough dynamic range for flames so an approach is to under-expose. Is that what you did here?

I'd always show this picture on its own, centered with adequate white space using a size, straight off that's impressive. Maybe, now it's a tad to large for some screens. In any case, A good picture deserves pause and reflection! So, do you think this way of showing your picture is worth the effort or it makes no difference. I'd like to know if I'm right in this as we see a lot of small images set to one side with a lot of text and other distracting things.

Asher


I'm sorry that I too missed this set of Luxor pictures! BTW, Small images, set to the side within text might not have the vibrance and life possible with optimized placement and presentation. Folk might give a glance and not realize they can click through to a rewarding image. So load a 600-700 or so pixel image right away. We'll load faster within a few days as we're migrating to a new and hopefully faster hosting service.

 

[Winston Mitchell]

Hi Winston,

This is one those cases which really makes me wonder about human nature. It is almost impossible that more than 100 people have seen these great pictures and no one has chosen to comment even briefly. So I hope we can as yet make it up to you for this great omission.

Firstly, I like the individual pictures but as a series with a story to it they are even stronger. The first one of the flame is a nice close up and graphically strong. The view on the Nile with the morning sun is a very nice picture, albeit a bit of a typical photo which is taken by many others in similar ways. This is not a critique, as I feel the same way about my own pictures taken at famous landmarks. Especially interesting are the "clouds" from the chimneys forming elongated shapes.

This brings me back to the final two pictures, which are the real winners in this series. The portrait of the pilot is very, very good, but I'd mask/dim the white distraction in the lower right hand corner. And the last one of the packers is also very good. This is work to them but they seem to be enjoying what they are doing.

Thanks a lot for sharing these and my apologies for not reacting earlier .

Cheers

What a relief. I thought I had inadvertently crossed some hidden line with no way to get back.

Yes, the Nile image is soooo typical. Most of my travel pix are what they are...record shots. I got a lot of interesting aerials but the chosen shot seem to fit the four-shot story line best.

Thanks to you and Mike Shimwell, I have toned down Patti's obnoxious hat.

About the packers: These guys were very fast, efficient and fun to watch. I got eight frames. The one I picked was the only one to capture the rhythm of their work.

Thanks for your comments.

Winston,

This is an interesting and attention-getting shot. The rising angle of red canvas above against darkness draws one into the flame. The lines pull our attention down to the top of the gondolas and the coiled piping. My only wish would for it to be taller, but right now, as it is, there's an excitement and a roar of the hot gases as the flames shoot up. One never has enough dynamic range for flames so an approach is to under-expose. Is that what you did here?

I wanted a clear image of the burners so I spot-metered on the flame just above them. I did take an insurance frame 2 stops under...yuk. Interestingly, this is one of those rare raw images that made it through Lightroom without turning any knobs. Almost all of the detail in the upper part of the flame is recovereable but it just doesn't look hot enough.

I'd always show this picture on its own, centered with adequate white space using a size, straight off that's impressive. Maybe, now it's a tad to large for some screens. In any case, A good picture deserves pause and reflection! So, do you think this way of showing your picture is worth the effort or it makes no difference. I'd like to know if I'm right in this as we see a lot of small images set to one side with a lot of text and other distracting things.

Asher

I must confess that the first image was just a device to start the story. I didn't think anyone would be interested in the imageitself; hence the small size. It would be interesting to know the membership's prefered image dimensions. I would think that most photographers have at least 1024×768 screens and many have1280×1024 or larger. I am running 2048×1536. When posting on these forums, I never think to center the image. It isn't much effort...just a mouse click on the "Align Center" button.

Thanks for your reply.

 

[Asher Kelman]

Packing up: As I watched the crew make preparations to pack the balloon, I sensed an opportunity. I found a relatively unobstructed view and started making exposures, hoping for a poetic moment. The choreographer showed up for one frame.

Sony DSLR-A700:1/500s f/4.0 at 28.0mm iso400​

Winston,

I came back to this picture after I saw a short series of slides on ballooning and remembered this one. The scale of the mwork is not even imagined when one sees these balloons gracefully moving across the sky. Here, however, we see how much manpower is needed to wrangel control of these gigantic swathes of material. I wonder if they use Egyptian cotton or perhaps a synthetic material that does not explode in flame.

Now that we have had some advances in processing with HDR, do you think that such processing might be of benefit to this image as well as the view of the Luxor region and the "self-polluting boats" that ply the nile.

Asher

 

[Rachel Foster]

I like the 3rd the best. I'd love to see more of your portraits.

 

[Winston Mitchell]

Winston,

I came back to this picture after I saw a short series of slides on ballooning and remembered this one. The scale of the mwork is not even imagined when one sees these balloons gracefully moving across the sky. Here, however, we see how much manpower is needed to wrangel control of these gigantic swathes of material. I wonder if they use Egyptian cotton or perhaps a synthetic material that does not explode in flame.

The envelope appeared to be made of the usual ripstop nylon.

Now that we have had some advances in processing with HDR, do you think that such processing might be of benefit to this image as well as the view of the Luxor region and the "self-polluting boats" that ply the nile.

Asher

None of the raw files exhibit any clipping so I'm not sure what HDR would do for the images. The aerial of Luxor is a very flat image with a lot of contrast added in PP.

I like the 3rd the best. I'd love to see more of your portraits.

Thanks Rachel, This fellow was rowing a boat on the Nileat at Aswan.

©2009 Winston Mitchell
Sony DSLR-A700 ,Minolta AF 100-400mm f/4.5-6.3
1/800s f/8.0 at 400.0mm iso800​

 

[Rachel Foster]

Winston, portraiture is definitely a strength of yours.

 

[Winston Mitchell]

Rachel, you're too kind.

My lightroom catalog has close to 18,000 images. there might be two or three more like these in there. Rarely, I get lucky.

 

[Charlotte Thompson]

Winston

These wonderful shots of yours does remind me of an old song by Rod Stewart "Every Picture Tells a Story Don't It"
thanks for the ride
btw
the face of the smiling guy is GREAT!
on or off the ballon-great in the moment catch"


Charlotte-