From our hearts, to God's ear

[SmartWombat]

I'm not sure about these.
I need to do more work on matching the sky colour (I didn't use manual).
I don't know if mixing portrait and landscape works.
There is sensor dust that needs removing (or just lazy cloning in LR to fix).

But as a series, I think it captured it.
Particularly the lone balloon at the end.

I want your thoughts before I do more work on this.
If it doesn't have wheels, and isn't moving really fast, I'm out of my comfort zone...

[MB1]

I think the last shot is the winner here but without the context of the other images it probably doesn't stand out.

I think the lighting is a problem with all the photos and you may not be able to do much to improve them.

[petershin_95]

that's going to be a lot of dead dolphins... haha.
but anyways... the subject (guessing the balloons) does not look too attractive.. maybe if the color was there. play with it on ps.

[GB1]

Paul - The lighting is a major issue here, being way too dark and gloomy, as are the subjects being silhouetted by the sky. It's a common situation and unfortunately you've been bitten by it too (these shots are eerily familiar to me, as they look like photos I took while stationed in Europe awhile ago. Same issue: interesting foreground subjects, but underexposed against the sky).

I am not sure how you would get the balloons to show up and properly exposed w/o blowing out the sky. A graduated ND filter would work in #1 but not in the others.

Subject wise, I like the concept but think you're too far away from the balloons (need a longer lens) and that the folks in the first shot don't complement them all that well, the way they are assembled. What can you do in situations like this? Don't know

[SmartWombat]

What can you do in situations like this?

I take that one out, and concentrate on the balloons

They released the balloons into the dusk, I could barely see the people with the naked eye, so what you see here is how it looked to me.
So now it's time to make the camera lie

Use Photoshop and do an adjustment on the sky and then individual adjustments on the balloons to bring up the red.

[Dubbs5050]

the last shot does it for me, not so much with the others. I might try and bring out some more blue in the sky and make the red on that balloon "pop"