Alright, for those who remember my blog post from last year, this one isn’t coming in a month late. Just… nearly three weeks late this time. This time I have the excuse of having a full-time job (last year I was part time), and some other things that distracted me.

The Balloon Fiesta began on October 5th, and ended on the 13th - plus one more day for crewing. Ten grueling days of photography, balloon crewing, and work. For those who had been observing my posts on Instagram, the theme was all about fatigue. I just had to make it to the end. Being on my feet for about 14 hours a day; working a 40 hour work week at my full-time job plus more. After the events, my feet were actually hurting for another three days.

While I successfully made it alive this year, I will have to consider taking time off from work in order to not drive myself into exhaustion next year.

To further the topic of exhaustion, I’ve got to say that being tired adversely affected my photography. As the days went on, my creativity became nonexistent; I just was not able to “see” photo opportunities anymore. Looking at my files, I took many shots the first few days of the Fiesta, and then the last few days barely had any photos. You can somewhat witness my mind degrading over time from the first photos to the last photo.

As usual, it was great seeing pilots that I hadn’t seen in a long while, and I also got acquainted with some more pilots too!

Alright, enough writing. All-in-all, this year was rough. Here are the photos down below: