Hot Air Balloon Basket Against a Bright Blue Sky Canvas Print

These baskets are quite small so that they don't weigh down the balloons.I was hooked on Balloon Festival many years ago, so we just had to go to Lakeland, Florida for the Up Up and Away Florida Hot Air Balloon Festival last weekend. It was a lovely day and the wind speed was perfect (always an issue with hot air balloons). For photographers, hot air balloons are just made for us. There are also a few for sale from Albuquerque, which is the mother of all festivals. There is a short video/slide show at my Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/FloridaTraveler1/.

I love to tell stories. About twenty years ago I had my first freelance travel article accepted by a magazine. Much to my surprise, the magazine expected photos along with words. I had not taken any during the preliminary work for my article. I drove back to the site and took the photos for the article with my little Olympus digital camera. The article was published with those very amateur photos. In time, I bought an Olympus OMD-EM5, a great camera for nature and travel photographers and discovered that I enjoyed telling stories with pictures more than I did with words. The last twenty year have been an incredibly exciting time as resources for photographers have exploded. I have been lucky enough to have some great teachers along the way...