2014 Colorado Springs Balloon Classic

This past Saturday, we woke up before the crack of dawn and drove over to Memorial Park to see the balloon launch at the Colorado Springs Balloon Classic.  It was the first time I’d ever seen a whole field of hot air balloons and it was very, very cool.

There was a great variety of different balloons of all kinds of colors and even some unusual shapes.  I think my favorite of the unique balloons was this happy elephant, but the jester balloon was quite the attention-grabber too.

Of course, along with the big picture photos, I had to get a collection with the closer details.  I really enjoyed the chance to get so close to the balloons.  Bright colors were the name of the game and this yellow balloon gave me some nice vivid shots.

One of the angles I quite liked was looking up at the interior of the balloons.  Up that close, I could really feel the heat of the flames when they got fired up.

Since the launch took place first thing in the morning, the angle of the sun made for some lighting challenges, as well as a few unique opportunities.  I really liked being able to see the balloons from the inside during the process of blowing them up.

The launch lasted about an hour and two batches of balloons went up in the air.  I felt like we had just barely arrived and then it was all over in the blink of an eye.  The most disappointing part is that this was the last year for the event to be held in Colorado Springs.  I’ll definitely have to keep an eye out for similar events nearby, because it was definitely worth getting up way too early on a Saturday morning for.