Vincent in the air
Dutch entry to the hot air balloon festival in Kuala Lumpur Putrajaya, March 2015
Dutch entry to the hot air balloon festival in Kuala Lumpur Putrajaya, March 2015
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Oct, 2015Views
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Behind The Lens
Location
This photo is taken at a hot air balloon festival near the Putrajaya lake, in the south of Kuala Lumpur (capital of Malaysia). This festival is held once in the 2 or 3 years. Around 50 balloons from countries all over the world join this festival. The whole weekend many activities are organised for families with small children. But the highlight of the event is the balloons flying over the lake early in the mornings of the weekend days. This was the contribution of a Dutch private balloon entrepreneur. I am kind of artist myself, a Dutch expat living for some years in Kuala Lumpur with a passion for colours and images. Vincent van Gogh is a well known Dutch artist (1853-1890). So that is the connection. He made a lot of 'selfies' by the way. He was ahead of his time in many aspects.Time
This is around 7 am in mid March 2015. We went with a small group of expat ladies from a photo club. We talked ourselves in the area where normally only professional photographers are allowed to go. This is one of a whole serie of a lot of various balloons, being prepared, ascending in the air, and flying over the lake far away in the direction of the city center. It all happens very quickly. I decided to concentrate on the balloon of my home country.Lighting
It was a clear, bright sky like it can be in the tropics but not always is. So we were lucky, especially as Vincent van Gogh painted so many brilliant skies himself.Equipment
I used a Pentax K-r camera and a Pentax-telelens (70-300 mm). I didn't use any flash or tripod or filter.Inspiration
I wanted to take a photo of this balloon in which Vincent showed full face, which was pretty hard, as it turned around all the time.Editing
I did some light post-processing, like I use to do with most of my pictures (cropping and tuning more light in). In this case I did also some sharpening and HDR-processing to get a little bit more artificial feel, which goes with the 'painted' balloon. But all simply in Picasa as I wasn't familiar with PhotoShop at the time.In my camera bag
My basic camera (Pentax K-r) with basic lens (35 mm), and either my new (second hand) Sigma zoom lens (28-200 mm 1.35-5.6) or new (second hand) Sigma zoom lens 70-300 mm 1.4-5.6), a sunhood, protective uv filter (sometimes a tripod).Feedback
You have to act quickly, go there where the action is and change lenses quickly. They are all gone in an hour. Best to concentrate on a few balloons close to each other to capture the whole process of blowing the balloon, climbing in the baskes, firing the gas and then drifting away high in the sky. I asked the balloon team for a business card and sent them a few days later all the pictures I had taken of their balloon. Unfortunately never heard anything back, maybe that had something to do with the 'ear story'. I hope someone will detect the photo of their balloon in this wall of fame.
