The Art booth No. 61 at Dallas Arboretum

Right after the exciting Balloon Show in Plano, we took the free city bus back to the DART Station before 9:00 AM. Immediately Pauline drove us heading for Dallas Arboretum to visit Dr. Lai's booth at the Fine Art Exhibition.

Though there were not so many colorful flowers as compared to spring time, the specially arranged activities inside the garden still attracted a lot of families and visitors, because of the supports from several big companies such as Texas Instruments.

Pauline has bought an annual pass for NTAPA at the entrance. With the pass, she can take family or friends up to 6 people to get in free, plus a free parking. Contact Pauline or Walt for details if you are interested.

We visited Dr. and Mrs. Lai's booth as we first got in. Dr. Lai told us that this was his first time to do such thing (set up a booth to promote his art work.) It is extremely time and energy consuming, and both he and Mrs. Lai felt very tired. “ No more next time!” Dr. Lai said, smiling.

Since there were not so many flowers, we thought we might go home earlier right after we took a quick tour of the familiar paths and scenes. However, each of us was unusually so serious and enthusiastic taking pictures everywhere that we ended up with spending three hours in the garden.

From tiny water drops on the flowers to rushing water curtains, from orange pumpkins floating inside the fountain to the shadows reflecting in a small pond, we were chasing the interesting techniques for capturing the beauty of water using various modes on our Canon's and Nikon's. Everyone was so deeply concentrated on photographing that we even forgot hunger.

We spent most of our time in experimenting how to shoot better running water curtains. Amy seems the most experienced hand among five of us. Pauline and Lin also tried their own combinations. Richard and I are the less experienced guys. All of us spent more than 40 min just in this single spot. We really enjoyed the tries and had a good time there.

So the morning of September 22, 2007, we will not forget this very special day when we rushed for two totally different but same interesting photo tours. You should have been one of us!!!

Following are some of the photos I took and would like to share with you all. Please click on each picture to enlarge.

The Story of the Balloon Festival

I got up at 5:00 AM this morning with a little bit difficulty at the first few seconds. When drove to the DART Station, I was the first one arrived. The sky was still dark.

五時免強爬起，摸黑驅車至捷運站，發現我是第一人到達。

The first person I met at the bus station was Dave Tyler. He is one of the new members joined our Association last Wednesday. Looking at his fully loaded back bag, I think he must be an experienced and professional photographer.

在巴士站上第一個見到的是大衛，他是大前天剛加入的新團員。看見他攜帶塞得滿滿的大背包，料其必然是老經驗的攝影高手。

Another than Dave and myself, jointing our team this morning were our President, Pauline Chen, Amy Zhou, Richard Chen, Howard Lie, Phong Tran, Lin Hwang, Li Su and his daughter. As planned, we all got on the first bus to the balloon launch field, which is about 10 min drive from the DART Station.

除了大衛與我，今天來的還有會長Pauline、Amy、Richard、Howard、Phong、 Lin、 Li 及其女兒。我們如計畫搭第一班巴士離開。會場距車站僅十分鐘車程。

With an exciting and expecting mind approaching the field on the bus, our driver had a little bit problem finding the entry gate and had to turn around another direction. Believe or not, this was the first time I was taking a city bus in Dallas since I moved in this city 23 years ago.

在興奮與期望的心情下快接近現場時，可能是天黑看不清楚，司機竟走錯路。說出來也許你不會相信，今天竟然還是我到達拉斯23年來，第一次搭乘公車。

Howard Lie is the initiator of today’s program. He was so enthusiastic that he reminded me several times about this event weeks ago. He came to this fun last year and he knows where is the right spot we should set up our gears to wait for the game. We appreciated him and respected his attitude. It is because NTAPA has many individuals like Howard that it attracts people to join and keeps it growing.

李兄是此次活動的發起人，他事前反覆叮嚀我多次協助安排聯絡，促成此事。他多次參加，經驗豐富，知道在哪拍攝最好。李兄的高度熱誠，大公無私地協助大家，讓我們又感激，又欽佩。本會之所以會不斷有新會友加入，不斷持續下去，主要是因為有許多類似李兄這種人，在其中默默地耕耘播種所致。

If I were given a super powerful microphone system like the one we heard this morning in the balloon site, I would like to climb up to the top of a hill and yell to all those who have never been in a Balloon Festival. Everyone should come tomorrow morning like we did today.

如果我有一套超級功率擴音機，像今天會場用的，我真願登高急呼，凡是從未看過熱氣球起飛的人，明天都應該來看看那種壯觀的場面。

It is a real exciting moment when seeing the huge and colorful balloons in various shapes blown up from “nothing” on the ground in a few minutes and suddenly flying all over the sky, from big to small, from clear to dim, finally all disappeared.

當你看見一個個，形形色色，巨大無比，五彩繽紛的熱氣球，從平地快速被吹起，在短短幾分鐘內，突然一一升空，從龐大到渺小， 從清楚到黯淡, 最後全部消失，那真是扣人心弦的一刻！

One bad thing happened to me was, at this critical moment, my “new” Canon Rebel suddenly would not let me shoot. Though Howard and Li helped me resolved the urgency in a few minutes, I had lost some best moments.

就在這緊要關頭，我的 "新" 加農相機突然失靈，快門按不下去了。雖經李及蘇即時幫助，在一兩分鐘內解決了問題， 我仍錯過了一些最佳的拍攝機會。

This was another wonderful experience to me since being an NTAPA member.

今天是自加入攝影協會後，又經歷了一次難能可貴的經驗。