Aerostat – Balloon Life Magazine – Ballooning – Svensk Flyghistorisk Tidskrift

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Ballooning March 1996

"Peter Anderson and Torleif Svensson have put together a magnificent photographic essay on hot air and gas ballooning.

Each page of this 9 1/2" square book is beautifully designed and technically excellent, from the composition and color balance of the photographs to the quality of the printing.

The page design, especially, shows a level of expertise rarely found in today's ballooning picture books. Each layout is perfect, drawing maximum attention to the photographs, without calling attention to the design itself.

After a number of years in the sport, you might begin to think you've seen all the approaches there are to photographing balloons. No way, there are many new ones here.

A favorite of this reviewer is a close-up shot of two parachutists sliding down the outside of an envelope in flight - they had ridden to altitude on top of the crown. The photographer caught them just before they slid off the equator into the sky.

Since this book was prepared and published in Sweden, a lot of the photography is of European balloons and locales. (There are, of course, several pages devoted to the Kodak Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta.) But the overall effect is not one of "European ballooning" but rather, as the title suggest, the art of ballooning, everywhere.

Anderson and Svensson have also included a special section of art transfers of balloon photography. These haunting images serve to whet the appetite - we hope the two men will publish more of them.

The Art of Ballooning has stayed out of my bookcase all winter. It's exactly what I reach for on the cold, snowy afternoons when flying seems a distant memory."

Ruth P. Ludwig
Editor, Ballooning
(The Journal of the Balloon Federation of America)

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