Arabian Nationals

Arabian Nationals are in town. Today was our first really cold day here. Four layers later and sheltered from the wind in a horse stall I was still struggling to feel my hands after an hour. It seemed some of the horses were coping better than others with the windy weather.

Another Car Show

Farewell Balloons

By now all the out-of-town balloonists have left Albuquerque. Here's just a few more balloon photos from last week.

A Visit from the Dark Side

This year's balloon fiesta had a new visitor. Darth Vader. It was most likely the crowd favorite since it easily attracted the largest crowd each morning it took off and had many children and adults carrying around light sabers all day long. A few of us photographers decided to put together a group Soundslides on the Darth Vader balloon and decided to wait until Special Shapes day to do it. It was a long day but worth it in the end. And I got to practice my French with the Belgian crew that flew the balloon. It was some butchered French but who would have guessed I would get to use French in New Mexico.

Thanks Benoit Lambert and crew of Darth Vader!

For anyone wishing to figure out how to post Soundslides to a blog I'm going to try and type out how I'm doing so soon.

Sandia = Watermelon

I'm slowly learning Spanish words I never knew before... this soccer feature was plain cute until I learned that "Watermelon" translates to "Sandia," which just happens to be the name of the school these girls had just beat during a soccer match.

Cabezon Peak

The adventures here seem to never end. Last week I was sent on a "hike" with a reporter for our GO section. The reporter is writing it first person so I used him in most of the photos as a reference of scale. Little did anyone tell me how desolate the area we were going was. The trail was barely marked with rocks and oh did I mention it was up hill? It was more of a climb than a hike. I survived though and signed the log book at the top wondering if I was the only Floridian to conquer the peak so far. It's not a well known place just yet and only sees visitors every few days and even then it's one or two people a day. The most common sentence written in the log book was, "Beautiful view, don't know how I'm going to get down."

Voting time of year

Balloon Fiesta Day 1

Balloon Fiesta has begun. The balloons are amazing. It's hard to make a bad photo of the balloons. And at the same time it's hard to make a photo that is new and different. For opening day I decided to wake up extra early to hopefully secure a media balloon ride. It worked. I shot too much wide angle, a few Holga frames, and some video. The video was last minute and I so wish I had brought along my tiny Gorilla Pod.

Thanks Ken Walter and his family and friends for an amazing adventure!

Hip Hop High

Rio Rancho High School has a hip hop club and I was hoping to do something a bit long term on them but the run date could not be changed so I might be doing it for myself if I have time. Good group of kids having a blast dancing.

Training

Wide:Close-up:

Pink Aggies

Photo illustration for New Mexico State's pink themed football game for breast cancer awareness which involved laying on the field grass that happened to be damp and thus ruining a good pair of khakis. :(