Yesterday, the 19th Philippine International Hot Air Balloon Fiesta comes back after 2 years of waiting. The 4 of us from Philippine Bloggers Network namely Myrns Roman, Ted Claudio and Azrael Coladilla were at the Clarkfield around 1 am and waited for the gates to open. By 4:30 am, we were called to enter and directly we went to the grounds where the balloons will be flying.
Past 5 am the Land Rovers, who were the official Chase Team partners for this year started rolling with the articulated carts where it carried the Hot Air Balloons.
Before the break of dawn, the crew of each team started packing out their gear in darkness, where the headlights of their Land Rovers aided them to see where it was still pitch dark.,
The official opening of the event comes with the Philippine Air Force skydivers team and the singing of the Philippine National Anthem. It’s always a race for the first team to soar high up in the clouds safely so each member of the crew makes every checklist checked and re-checked before they burn the fuel into the balloons.
Once the balloons are stretched out and made sure parachute cords are tied safely, a powerful large blade fan blows air inside to make sure the gas from the hot air goes through in safely. Before that happens, we ask permission to go inside the balloon to grab a pose.
Capt. Joy Roa goes around to see everything is in control, safe and sound. Balloons start firing up burning their gases into the balloons.
Then its a race! We were ruckus on which balloon we should shoot first as they all came up almost at the same time now! For those looking for the sunflower or the smiling sun with a wink, apparently a minor tragedy happened when they ignited the flames, there was a bush fire that also caught the rope and the balloon so it wasn’t able to take its flight this time.
After all the balloons have flown, i roamed around and had to take some more photos since i got this chance to shoot with Fujifilm’s X-E2 mounted with a 50-230mm lens. All photos posted here were shot using the X-E2 Straight out of the Camera, just added watermarks.
Do you want to see more images from yesterday’s hot air balloon? Click here for 2015 pics and click here for my 2012 pics.
