Forgive me for dragging out the lantern festival one more day, but since we've had a guest photographer these past few days, I wanted to share one of his more stunning shots. This is a shot of the lanterns flying across the sky, with the shutter open for an extended period of time.
With the best photo, I also want to share the best story of the event. While seeing the lanterns in the sky was amazing, equally impressive was seeing a few never quite make it into the sky and end up falling to the ground. It's exciting to see a tree on fire or parts of the river in flames.
The most exhilarating moment was when I was in line for the bus to get back to the city. Somebody's lantern went up and got stuck in the power lines right above where I was standing. It quickly caught on fire and then flung itself into the line of people. Tragedy was bound to happen as the line was just too packed to move, but somehow everybody was able to get out of the way.
The lantern was on the ground burning, and a police officer rushed over, picked up part of it, and threw it into the river. I'm most sad that I wasn't able to get a picture of any of this, but it happened rather quickly, and it takes my phone about 30 seconds to get itself ready to take a picture.
If you have enjoyed the pictures of the lantern festival, all thanks go to my friend for letting me use his pictures. As you can tell he is quite talented. If you'd like to see some more artistic photos of life in Taiwan, you can check out his photos at the link below. Thanks again for letting me use your pictures.
