Notes on Kite Aerial Photography: Background

A KAP Vitae
Article for Sport & Design Drachen


In 1996, my friend Wolfgang Bieck began a series of articles for the handsomely-produced german magazine sport und design drachen. The first article in the 'luftbild galerie' series was a profile of Wolfgang's own work. This was followed by articles on Craig Wilson and Brooks Leffler. Wolfgang then kindly invited me to submit images and text for an article in the series and I happily complied during the spring of 1997. The article appeared in their 5.97 issue following a short article on this WWW site in the preceding issue. I am delighted with the way it turned out. My heartfelt thanks to Wolfgang and the staff of sport und design drachen.




I submitted my text to sport und design drachen in english and Wolfgang served as interpreter to translate in german. For those of you interested in the english version I've included the original text below. Some of it is adapted from the WWW site but much is original.

Introduction

For two years I have been taking photographs from kite-lofted cameras and, looking back, this has been the most engaging of endeavors. Among the joys of kite aerial photography (KAP) are the opportunity for invention, the physical challenge of positioning kite and rig, the unusual ‘once removed’ aspect of composition in absentia, and contact with a fine group of KAP colleagues.

Kite aerial photography appeals to that part of me, perhaps of all of us, that would slip our earthly bonds and see the world from new heights. An aerial view offers a fresh perspective of familiar landscapes and in doing so challenges our spatial sensibilities, our grasp of relationships. Poet Thomas Campbell observed "’T is distance lends enchantment to the view." You might think ‘t is height that lends enchantment to KAP but its charms are considerably more subtle. For me they lie in the vantage point that lies beyond normal human experience even if only by a few meters.

My beginnings

Kite aerial photography aligns nicely with some of my previous interests. I have been a photographer since my college days and know the basics of this area. I have been flying radio-controlled sailplanes for about ten years and have a decent foundation there as well. Though I began KAP knowing little of kites what I have learned to date suggests they are a pleasant enough hobby.

The internet was a key catalyst in my KAP beginnings. My first research on KAP provided an interesting test of the network's various resources. Then, after taking my first KAP photographs, I began a WWW site describing the hobby. An ongoing project, these web pages are a journal of sorts, a place to gather and record notes regarding my developing interest in KAP. The WWW site provides a vehicle for the display of my work and this is fine incentive to take photographs. The result is practice. As in many endeavors, such practice is a requisite for genuine skill.

The WWW site also had the serendipitous effect of connecting me with other kite aerial photographers and these colleagues have been invaluable resources. My early KAP thinking was strongly shaped by visits with Anne Rock, correspondence with Brooks Leffler, articles in Leffler’s remarkable Aerial Eye newsletter, and a summer visit with Wolfgang Bieck (the coordinator of this series). More recently, visits with Michel Dusariez of Belgium and Simon Harbord of Scotland have continued my instruction.

Technical approach

Most of the images illustrating this article were taken with my first kite aerial photography rig: a Yashica T4 point-and-shoot camera carried in a two-axis (azimuth and tilt) radio-controlled cradle. This trusty apparatus was modeled after a design by Brooks Leffler and scratch built in aluminum and basswood, materials from my RC sailplane days. Weighing 635 grams, it produced my first 100 rolls of KAP images. More recently, I have built rigs around the Canon Rebel X single-lens-reflex camera (1,245 grams with 24-mm lens) and the Yashica T4 Super point-and-shoot camera (560 grams). Each of the new rigs has azimuth, tilt, and film format controls. As I gain experience with the new equipment, the Canon-based rig is emerging as my favorite. Though more than twice as heavy, it captures noticeably sharper images with less darkening of the image corners (vignetting).

I’ve auditioned many kites for the role of steady lifter. The ideal kite would assemble quickly, allow easy single-handed launches in confined space, fly well in a range of wind speeds, handle turbulence with aplomb, and pack down to a small size on the ground. Delta conynes and Rokkakus have been useful but my favorite to date has been the Sutton Flowform. Over 75% of my photographs have been taken below either the Sutton 16 or the Sutton 30. My trust in this lifter is shaped in part by the relatively strong and consistent winds of the San Francisco Bay Area.

I have developed biases as well as experience. For instance, I prefer to stay with the kite as I am shooting. This means the kite must provide enough lift for the camera rig but not so much that it is uncomfortable to fly with a single hand. Keys to this strategy are keeping your camera rig light (<1000 grams is ideal) and having a range of kites so that you can match the kite to available wind. I have experimented with airborne video transmitters and find that I do not care for their use as an electronic viewfinder. It is simply too complex for the benefit gained unless framing the shot precisely is a critical necessity. Besides, I enjoy the delicious anticipation that accompanies waiting for remotely composed images to return from the processor.

Photographs

To date I’ve been taking kite aerial photographs for compositional purposes, mostly within an hour or so of my home in Berkeley, California. I began by shooting the natural environment, a category offering wide open spaces, fewer people, and often steady winds. I then turned, as befits an architect, to photographing the built environment. With this subject comes the opportunity to fly in more confined settings and in more turbulent air. Even more difficult is the documentation of the social environment because it involves flying near (or over) people and their activities – a practice that requires both skill and caution. I am only beginning to take images in this latter category.

Recently I’ve turned some of my attention to the applied side of kite aerial photography. I am just completing an entertaining project that combines kite photographs, ground-based photographs, and computer-based photogrammetric technique to develop three-dimensional computer models of architectural space without numerical input. Within the last week I’ve fielded inquiries from academics studying manatees in Costa Rica (Geography), documenting the refraction of wave trains as they approach the shore (Oceanography), tracking zonation of dune vegetation on barrier islands along the US coastline (Geography again), and assembling archaeological evidence of human predation of bison 5,000 years ago (Archaeology). I find these contacts altogether great fun.

Summary

It is a disarmingly simple notion to attach a camera to a kite and thus displace it from the space we occupy to the space we cannot. However simple, the technique has opened interesting doors – doors to projects beyond my own discipline, to interesting people, and to a new view of the world around me. Many aspects of KAP technique are delightfully anachronistic. For instance, I find myself contemplating challenges faced by my grandparent’s generation in designing a camera suspension or using a slide rule to calculate camera position. Other aspects are quite contemporary. My kite bag carries carbon fiber components, an IR laser rangefinder, and a computer-mixed radio transmitter. But in the end I appreciate KAP the most because it offers a continuing excuse to roam my fair state and spend time below a sweet-flying kite.



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