A key to good street photography is following the light and seeing what’s illuminated. The task is to see and react to an unfolding candid moment and capture it before it’s gone.  This image is one such moment.

Balloon Fiesta 2016 | Flickr Explore on 2016.11.10

This is a still scene from the 2016 Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta.

In the center of this frame we see a lobo (wolf) on the bed of a pickup truck that belongs to a hot-air balloon crew. The lobo is actually a costumed person wearing a full-head wolf mask. A beam of sunrise poked between hot-air balloons, directly onto the mask, acting like a spot light. The fur looked like it was glowing.

Seconds after I saw and successfully captured this, the costumed individual removed the mask and stepped down.

I am particularly pleased here with the elements as I framed them. The enormous backdrop of two adjacent hot-air balloons gives the context in nearly half of the visual space.  In the bottom 1/4th we see the frenetic human activity among the spectators: especially the the fellow photographer at 6 O’clock who was aiming his lens directly at me!