Cave Creek Balloon Festival 27 May 2017

I’ve photographed several Cave Creek Balloon festivals in the past.  This time it was warm!  In years past, it’s been held in the winter and one time it was so cold I had to keep my gloves on while photographing.  

The warm but pleasant weather brought out a huge crowd, probably the biggest ever.  It was held on the Rancho Mañana golf course, which provided a lot of room for the ten+ balloons, concessions, and people.  

The event started with a fly-by.

Entertainment on the Sanderson Ford country music stage was provided by the Anglim Sisters.  

Yet another low light shooting situation.  I was able to handle it with my Canon 5D Mark IV and some grain control within Adobe Lightroom. 

Until My Next Adventure,

See You On Down the Road!

Jim Patterson

Photos from Flickr ... and, here are all the keeper photos!

Cave Creek Balloon Festival May 2015

Falcon Field Fly By

The weather in the Phoenix area for late May was absolutely delicious, with a high barely reaching the 80s, a far cry from the previous five Cave Creek balloon festivals held in the middle of winter.  Now, this is the desert and sure it's warm, but the night in winter can be FREEZING!  

Lauren Riley Performs

This was the 6th annual balloon festival.  I took photos of the early fly-by from planes based at Falcon Field in Mesa, local country singer Lauren Riley, and the balloon glow.  

Lauren Riley Close Up

Photographing the performers on stage was difficult during the day as the backlighting pretty much washed out the details of the musicians.  As it got darker, my luck improved and I was able to use the stage lighting.  

And as it got dark, I had to use high ISO to capture the balloons as they were fired up by their owners.  

Balloon Light

For those interested, I used a Canon 5D Mark III and Canon 70-300mm lens.  Some of the photos were also treated with MacPhun's Noiseless Pro to eliminate noise that comes from photographing at a high ISO.  

Until My Next Adventure, 

(Sedona, With the Tamron Tailgate Tour)

See You On Down The Road!

Jim Patterson

Here are all the keeper photos from Flickr!

Cave Creek Balloon Festival 2013

I spent the late afternoon and evening of Saturday 12 January at Rancho Manana golf course in beautiful Cave Creek, Arizona.  The reason was the Fourth Annual Balloon Festival.  The good news is the wind was still to about 5 mph.  The bad news is it was CCCCOLD!!!  One of the coldest weekends I can remember in the Phoenix area as it dipped well below freezing.   There was still a fairly large crowd enjoying the festivities.  One thing I noticed was how hard it is to control a camera wearing gloves.  By the way, this was the last event I’m shooting with the Canon 7D and Tamron 18-270mm lens.  I traded them in for the Canon 5D and a few “L” class lenses and I should have them by Wednesday.  My next photography event will be a Phoenix Coyotes hockey game with my new gear!

Officials said the balloons would light around 6pm, so before then the band Remedy performed and I had a chance to get close and take some photos.  You can learn more about Remedy by going to their Facebook page here.  Nice folks and quite happy to have photos taken.  So it was nice to enjoy a gourmet dinner put on by the Tonto Bar and Grill in Cave Creek while Remedy entertained. 

Sure enough, by 6 pm they started to inflate the balloons. 

Enjoy all of my photos of the balloon festival below.

Keep shooting and stay warm! 

Jim Patterson

http://JamesGordonPatterson.com