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medium format balloon photography

the journal of Michael Werneburg

twenty-seven years and one million words

Today as I was coming home from the camera repair shop, I noticed a blimp-style balloon of maybe 4 metres in length and 1.5 metres in height and width, floating over the empty lot where a condo is going up. I noticed what looked like a medium-format camera dangling precariously from the thing, and doubted my eyes: surely no one was going to risk thousands of dollars in camera equipment by suspending it fifteen meteres in the air by a balloon?

So I hopped over the low reinforced-plastic fence and crossed the muddy yard to where a fellow was seemingly controlling the balloon with a remote control. As I approached, he signalled to his assistant to lower the balloon, and he set down the remote control. I wondered, as I got closer, what the camera was for. Was he photographing speeders on Mount Pleasant Blvd? Was he setting up a shot to demonstrate the view from the future condo? And was that *really* a MF camera dangling from a home-made brace?

We spoke for a while, and yes, it was a Rolleiflex and it was for the purpose of advertising the view from the future condo project. He preceded to strip the fins off of the balloon - they were held on with velcro - and to tell me all about it. It was capable of some 15 pounds of lift, the radio control was stricty for the camera mount, which he'd designed; the fins were the sole means of controlling the blimp itself, and they just kept it pointing into the wind. He seemed pleased to talk about it.