Today Allison, Eva and I went with our friends Neil and Andrea to the Quechee Balloon Festival in Quechee, Vermont. So why is today’s photo of a frog? We missed the balloons this morning because they went off at 6:00am. However, we met with the group at 8:00am and there were no balloons in sight. So we figured that we would see the balloons again at 6:00pm and there was rain. We had very bad luck seeing any balloons. But we learned many things for our next trip here. Those were pretty important things.

So, I will share them with you. If you are going to go on a photography adventure you must check out exactly where you are going. Research the venue online first learn about the event and the location. Know what time you should be there to get the best photos. Find out what the parking situation is like at the venue, do you have to pay, is there a special sticker you need? Make sure you have the right directions to the location. A little planning on the front end will go a very long way.

I took a bunch of photos, learned a little bit about shutter speed and experimented with a waterfall in town. I took a bunch of photos of it and I learned a bit but I figure I should find another waterfall or a better vantage point so that the images come out better. These are two of the best ones.

We ended up going to the Saint-Gaudens National Historic Site. It was about 20 miles from the center of Quechee. This is the only National Park in NH. We went there to take additional photos. I took a bunch all over the grounds including Mr. Frog prince up there. Here are two that I liked.

The Greek goddess Artemis, she is pictured here with her bow and arrow. This was a very tall sculpture.

I really like how the lines look on this image especially since I used the fisheye lens and the bottom was rounded anyway. That way it was less distorted.