“Take Me With You”
East of Six Corners Road in Walworth Township, Wisconsin
April 14, 2024
Was I ever surprised to see this scene when I was driving northwest of Walworth, Wisconsin, on August 14, 2005. The balloon was on the east side of Six Corners Road on a late afternoon or early evening in the summer.
This was a rare photo opportunity. For me, hot-air balloon sightings are infrequent in the southern part of Walworth County. Usually when I see balloons, they are far in the distance and out of photographic reach, except for the balloon as a small element in a larger landscape.
Not so with this photo: The balloon was close, and the craft against a varied sky necessitated photographic action on my part.
The textures of the land and the sky are fairly uniform, so all the attention is shifted to the balloon, which essentially had an envelop (the main part of the balloon that gives the craft its common name) with a design made for a black-and-white photo.
The checkerboard envelop pattern with its sharp edges provides a strong contrast to the softness of the plants and trees on the ground and clouds in the sky. Furthermore, the rectangles are juxtaposed wonderfully against the roundness of the envelop.
I never have ridden in a balloon. Maybe someday.
Doing photography from a balloon or airplane would be challenging insofar as making distinctive photos and not just ones from overhead that do not show all that much except topographical features in miniature. Of course, to some extent drones have displaced the human element from aerial photography.
Photography always is a matter of perspective, and one does not have to be several hundred feet in the air to make interesting images. We as people spend most of our time standing or sitting and become biased toward seeing the world from those points of view.
Therefore, changing perspective higher or lower than eye level while doing photography can produce more captivating images. The same applies to moving left, right, forward, or backward in relation to the subject.
When I was active doing photojournalism, in appropriate situations I was in constant motion to see which perspectives were best. Movement is beneficial – in photography and even more so in life.
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If you wish to comment or ask a question about this post, contact me at frednoer@att.net.