Night Lights

Kate still is not feeling well.

Last Sunday night, we had tickets for the shuttle to the Balloon Fiesta Park (Albuquerque). Kate had been to see a doctor earlier that day and was not feeling well enough to go. She just wanted to sleep, so I went solo.

The Balloon Glow (the balloons do not lift off, but the pilots fire the propane) was cancelled because of the high winds. This was the second year that we missed seeing the lighted balloons after dark. Soon after sunset, the full moon rose over the mountains--just in time to mark the beginning of the final event of the evening.


The last event on the program was the fireworks show, so some of the photos of these colorful explosives are shown here.


While waiting for the sun to set, I met a fellow from Houston who was considering a career in photography.


We talked about the national parks we had just visited, and he recommended a couple of places to see around Houston and eastern Texas.


I had not attempted to take photographs of fireworks before, so the first few shots were fast "learn-by-doing" photos.


There is luck involved in determining how to center the explosion on the screen and when to press the shutter to capture as much of the color as possible and just the right amount of movement.


Most of the photos shown here were taken with exposures of about two seconds.














I was pleased with many of these photos, and now I want to try to photograph lightning--from a distance.