After spending some time in hospital since my last post, and enjoying all the benefits that the NHS provides, it was time to get back to taking some pictures, and Bristol has been able to deliver recently with all the different festivals that have been going on across the city, giving me some great opportunities to have my camera on standby even if walking or carrying much was an issue...

Starting off with Upfest which is a celebration of Graffiti art, and takes place every year across an area of the city surrounding Bedminster and North street. It was a great opportunity to see some very talented artists actually making and creating their work right before your eyes.

All images taken on the day were with my 24-70mm F/2.8, which was the perfect lens for this sort of photography as it allowed me to capture the larger pieces of work as well as zoom in closer for the smaller works without needing to move around too much with the crowds around me.

At some point I will travel back to this part of Bristol to take some pictures of the finished works. They are there for the next year before they are replaced by the next Upfest.

Following on from Upfest it was time for the Bristol International Balloon festival at Ashton Court. I had been waiting for the opportunity to photograph this event ever since I had moved to Bristol, so I was very much looking forward to the festival. I had a wedding to shoot on the Saturday in London, so was only able to go to the festival on the Thursday which limited my time at the event, and the weather for some reason decided that this was the moment to change from boiling hot to wind and rain. This meant that I was not able to view the mass assent which the event is famous for, but was able to capture some fun images including the spectacular night display.

For the event, I went all out and used a combination of my 400mm F/f.6 and my 70-200mm F/4 during the day which allowed me to capture the setting up of the balloons as they attempted to tether them in the arena, and then my 24-70mm F/2.8 and 100mm F/2.8 Macro in the evening.

I got to the event in the afternoon to get a good position, close to the show ground so I wouldn't have the issue I had at the trooping of the colour (see blog post 'give yourself a try). This worked out really well as when it came to the night show in the evening, I was in a great position to view the whole of the show with minimal obstruction.

I shot the Night display with my 24-70mm F/2.8 at ISO 200 and a slow shutter speed, mounted on my tripod and triggered remotely to make sure the image was a sharp,  grain free image. 

Finally, a blast from the past and a story that takes me right back to my childhood. As it was the 40th anniversary of of the balloon festival there were several balloons that had not been flown, or shown for over 20 years. One of these balloons was Rupert the Bear (see below). This balloon was one I remember seeing over the Wiltshire countryside many times when I was little, and even more than that was the subject of a letter my sister wrote to 'Jim'll fix it', Asking if Jim would fix it for her to go up in the Rupert the bear hot air balloon. I think luckily for her this request was not taken up by the now notorious pedophile and sex offender that was Jimmy Saville. Talk about dodging a bullet there sis haha.

FIN