THE BALLOON GLOW DIDN’T WORK OUT SO WELL

 

It’s nice that St. Louis has so many public events and festivals. The bad news is that they have gotten so crowded as to be almost unbearable. The Great Forest Park Balloon Race is in its 54th year. It’s the usual hare and hounds chase. The night before they have a balloon glow. After sunset, they inflate on their gas jets at the sound of a horn, glowing vividly in the night. It’s spectacular.

Ellie and I arrived a half hour before the preliminary events started and 2.5 hours before sunset. We got one of the last spaces in the nearest parking lot. We sat in the car for an hour running the AC (not so bad, it’s a hybrid), killing time on screens. Ninety minutes before sunset we walked down one long hill and up another to get to the main field. Then Ellie, who is afraid of insects, wouldn’t sit on the grass because ants might get in her clothing. It was so hot, humid and crowded we went back to the car, at least for a cool off. We decided it was pointless and we left as the sun was setting. Huge numbers of people were still streaming in.        

CITY DAILY PHOTO JUNE THEME DAY - SHOW US A PARK IN YOUR CITY

Forest Park is the largest urban park in the United States. There are a few that are bigger within a city's official border (Phoenix, Boise) but they are in unpopulated areas. Ours is significantly bigger than Central in New York or Golden Gate in San Francisco, which would probably be most people's guess, and smack in the middle of town. The city is hard up for money but the park has been maintained and greatly improved by a private foundation, Forest Park Forever. 

I have 513 photos of the park on Flickr (and I have not been good about keeping it up to date lately). No way to pick just one. Two was difficult. The first picture is the top of Art Hill in October with the iconic statue of Louis IX of France. The second is the balloon glow held the night before the Great Forest Park Balloon Race, which may or may not take place September. If I am at a loss for something to shoot, there is always material there.         

Well, Duh

Oops, didn't get the job done yesterday. The usual day at work, then spent the evening at the Washington University psychology department, where I am a participant in a long term study on the affects of aging on personality. My goal is to screw up the curve.

So anyway, back to the balloons for a bit. This is what the event is all about, isn't it? But, as the saying goes, what goes up must come down. Entropy always wins in the end.

There is an overwhelming amount of things to shoot here this weekend, sidewalk chalk art events in both the University City Loop and Benton Park, the annual artists studio open house and the ever-wacky Grovefest in the eponymous neighborhood. How much can I get to?                           

How To Launch A Hot Air Balloon

Apparently with some difficulty, depending on the wind and the proximity of your tutu-wearing neighbors.                  

The Great Forest Park Balloon Race, Abstracted

I shoot the Great Forest Park Balloon Race almost every year. It is usually very crowded and full of color. We'll get to that but sometimes all those gaudy tones could use paring down.
                      

Madeleine Monday

Yes, she is.

A brief interruption in the Japanese Festival series. The annual Great Forest Park Balloon Race was held Saturday afternoon. (I'll get to those pictures before Halloween. Promise.) It's always packed and you have to park at a vast distance. However, you can buy tickets for a reserved area with large tents for shade, plenty of seating, food and drink and close-in parking. And no riff-raff. But when I saw what they were charging it was obvious that the letters stood for Vastly Inflated Price. 

Nevertheless, I sprang for tix for the family. Much more enjoyable. Ms. M had never seen hot air balloons before and got a big kick from it..                         

Saturation

The opposite approach from yesterdays post. The balloons are a riot of color. I think they lose some of their impact when six or eight are inflating amidst the huge crowd and the dome of a cloudless sky. If you get your lens in close you can bring back the energy.

The wind picked up near the end of the launch period. A few balloons were inflated but not allowed to take off. In the bottom photo, the City of St. Louis entry bangs into the Wehrenberg Theaters' giant bag of popcorn.            

Madeleine Mid-Week

Emily tried to teach Madeleine to sing Take Me Out To The Ball Game during the seventh inning stretch at the Cardinals game Monday night. As Virginia put it, "bless her little heart, baseball puts me to sleep, too."  There's time. As the regular season ends, the home town heroes are in the only close divisional race, two games up on Pittsburgh and three on Cincinnati with four still to play.        

Planets And Moons

That's what these images make me think of, anyway.

You may prefer the color versions. Click the Flickr link in the right sidebar.                   

 

Inflation

Ben Bernanke was not consulted in these decisions. The hare balloon lifted off 45 minutes behind schedule at the Great Forest Park Balloon Race. The rest of the field lifted off one after the other over the course of the next hour. The light couldn't have been better.    

Madeleine Monday

 

Well, the kid wasn't bursting with cheer yesterday afternoon, Grandma Carolyn tried her best to perk her up but she was having none of it. She's sure getting bigger, though. We may get something better tonight when the family goes to the Cardinals game.                

The Great Forest Park Balloon Race

A rare day without a post yesterday. I really wanted to shoot the balloon glow in Forest Park but I got out of work way too late. Went home and fell asleep.

I made up for it Saturday afternoon at The Great Forest Park Balloon Race. A couple of quick examples. More to come.         

The Local Entry

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This balloon is at the Great Forest Park Balloon Race year after year. Charles Lindbergh flew The Spirit of St. Louis from near New York to near Paris in 1927. We get the big bubble of St. Louis over Forest Park on a more regular schedule. The couple below are some of the typical St. Louisans the balloon represents.

May not be able to do a post tomorrow. We're supposed to drive to Kansas City right after work tonight for a weekend anthropology expidition in the part of Kansas where my wife grew up. We'll see. The road trip, of course, will be well documented.

What To Do With Gray Skies

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With a subject like the balloon race, my solution was to screw on a telephoto, get in close and then pump some steroids into the pictures with Photoshop. The bottom two pictures give you a sense of scale of the aircraft.

Arise, Thou Mighty Bunny

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The Great Forest Park Balloon Race is not a race in the traditional sense with victory going to the fastest. All the balloons ride the same wind. They call it a hare and hounds event, and I suppose the pun is intended. The Energizer Bunny balloon, sponsored by the eponymous battery maker, takes off first. The rest start to follow several minutes later, launching one after the other. The winner is the chase balloon that lands nearest to the bunny. The event makes the news but somehow the winner is never announced, like anybody cares.

So here's a series of shots of the great pink wabbit being inflated and soaring off above the crowd. I'd be careful of that hole in the bunny's bottom if I were in the crew.

 



 



 

Gravity's Rainbow

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We are moving toward the balloon race itself. The warm-up was a team of skydivers. I don't know if these things are properly called parachutes or parasails (advice welcome). The top one looks like it's made of tubes but I can't tell if they are open to the front or not. 

These pictures were taken at or near full extension with a 100-400 mm lens on a camera with a 1.6 crop factor. The jumpers mostly looked like dull smudges from the ground. The day was perfectly blah, a sky-wide soft box with not enough wattage. As you can see at the bottom, not everyone was thrilled.

Light The Night

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A few more from Friday night's balloon glow in Forest Park. It's a good thing I'm tall so I could shoot over the heads of the mob on the park's central athletic field.  The third picture is the Energizer Bunny balloon, sponsored by Energizer batteries, whose headquarters is here. Gee whiz fact: the silly thing is taller than the Statue of Liberty. In this image, it gets an application of the Bunny Bottom Burner.

The actual balloon race was yesterday. The sky was a uniform gray so the images will not be brilliant, but we'll get to some.

The Flagship

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Here's the local entry in the Great Balloon Race. I'm told that Mayor Francis Slay was riding in it. I wish all the local government and business leaders would set their sights so high and far. Sometimes it feels like this place lacks what George Bush the first called "the vision thing."

Today is a travel day but not very far. Posts may be brief and comments limited while I go to a professional conference in Chicago and hang out with one of the heirs to the St. Louis Daily Photo Blog fortune, U "R" Us. By the way, I highly recommend his post last Sunday on Chicago Flair about his recent experiences at Burning Man.

Balloon Abstraction

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Not everything at The Great Forest Park Balloon Race was light and fanciful. This makes me think of a Suprematist construction.

There is a growing set of balloon race pictures on Flickr here.

What Goes Up Must Come Down

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A little final color from the Great Forest Park Balloon race, to which we now must bid farewell. If I posted any more of this my visitors might think I'm full of hot air.*

WHAT'S SORE: my legs. This gym business can be difficult for sedentary urban types with snobby, quasi-intellectual tendencies. Seesh, a Rushdie novel and a class of port are so much more comfortable.

TOMORROW: Thursday Arch Series. Back to the weird, sort of abstract stuff.

* I'm sorry. I really do apologize. There are times when I just can't seem to control myself. Maybe I should seek professional help or buy a new lens or something.

Geometry and Color

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You have no idea how easily a tall, clumsy, middle-aged photographer could fall over backward taking a shot like this. I didn't, actually, but damn close.

WHAT'S UPSETTING ME: Republican proposals on health care. (Insane!) B.S. junkyard dog political campaigning. (Disgusting!) Sarah Palin. (The horror! The horror!)

TOMORROW: okay, one more day of balloons (worth your patience, I promise). Then Thursday Arch Series. Then a farewell to the regular baseball season.

It Keeps Going And Going And Going Nowhere

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Americans know the Energizer Bunny - it keeps going and going and going. This one is going nowhere in a hurry. Energizer's corporate headquarters is here and its balloon is traditionally the hare (now that's clever) that the other inflatables follow. There was a last minute announcement on Saturday that it was not airworthy and it would just stay tethered, wiggling its pink bunny batteries at the crowd.

WHAT WAS PRETTY COOL: Sunday was the St. Louis Cardinals open house at Busch Stadium for baseball season ticket holders. ShadowyOne and I waited in line over an hour to go through the Card's clubhouse and dugout but it was worth it. Pix later in the week.

TOMORROW: would you put up with another balloon or two?