Category Archives: Miscellaneous

Almost everyone you talk to loves the fall season. I am no exception to this, and I think I love it for the same reasons as others: the cooler temperatures, the changing leaves, and of course Balloon Fiesta in Albuquerque (I just don’t welcome the reminders that the North American monsoon has waned and winter is approaching). I have not attended the Balloon Fiesta for a couple years, and so I was itching to partake this year. I also had been scheming toward shooting some time lapse during one of the mass ascensions one morning. This past Thursday, the 11th, I made the trip and the weather was almost perfect. Light winds from the north northeast were draining down the Rio Grande near the surface, and just a few hundred feet off of the surface the winds were veering southerly. While this wasn’t the ideal “Box” setup, it was pretty darn close. Balloon pilots love the “Albuquerque Box” when due northerly winds at the surface are coupled with light southerly winds just a few hundred feet aloft. This allows pilots to ascend off the surface, drift southward down the valley, then ascend higher before catching the southerly winds aloft. When conditions are just right this will carry the pilots back to their point of origin where they can descend back to the surface for a landing or another ride through the box again.

Again this past Thursday, the conditions weren’t the most pristine that I have witnessed, but there was a pseudo-box effect. Some of this actually shows up in the time lapse footage I shot. After the sequence of the initial ascent of the balloons, there is some balloons noticeably drifting in opposing directions at different altitudes.

Also, within this video are some sequences I captured on Mount Taylor in west central New Mexico. The aspen were not a peak color, but they were radiating hints of gold in several locations.

Enchanted Autumn from Todd Shoemake on Vimeo.