Notes on Kite Aerial Photography: Miscellaneous

What's a little older than New



When waiting for the right light sometimes the KAPer has little to do but fly a kite, May 1995 (59K jpg)

This page archives my older What's New notes. It provides a reverse chronology record of the site's development for those that are interested in when what showed up.

More recent postings are listed in the What's New page.


3 February, 1999 - Here is an update on the KAP WWW site and matters KAP on the Benton front.

The KAP WWW site has been regrettably moribund for the last few months. This is, in part, due to the vagaries of hosting this rather large site on donated server space. My Department of Architecture has kindly allowed the KAP site to grow on its succession of servers. This has taken some patience on their part. I remember, for instance, a rather bluntly stated inquiry from the dean when Netscape listed the KAP site in What's Cool. Netscape's act led to a thousand-fold increase in traffic and so tied up our server that the dean (and many others) could not get their e-mail. So as a guest of sorts on the system, we are at times assigned a low priority. As you can imagine is sometimes difficult to make a case of urgency for kite matters.

In a nutshell, our server (www.arch) has been misbehaving for several months. These problems have not affected the delivery of pages that already exist but instead prevent access for editing, maintenance and additions of new material. For instance, I could not access the site as an author from the beginning of December until mid-January. I am happy to report that I now have editing access.

Now it turns out that my authorship hiatus, and it really extends back to last summer, has been altogether too relaxing. Thus I've been having a hard time re-engaging the site. This is not for lack of material - I have 500 or so images selected and scanned, working notes for many of the unfinished pages, etc. So, it will be interesting to see if I can get revved up again and active in managing the pages. Wish me good luck.

BTW, the site's search feature is still down - I'm working on it.

I do very much appreciate recent posts to the discussion group. Keep it up.

All for now


9 November, 1998 - I have extended my "World's Most Specialized Barter System" to include vintage fountain pens in addition to slide rules. Older fountain pens are holding increasing intrigue for me these days. Take a look at my fountain pen barter page to see how you can turn that old pen into a signed KAP photo.


21 October, 1998 - When I was updating my gallery page location maps I sketched a little diagram of location map relationships to help me figure out where to add the symbols. I thought it might help you make sense of the maps as well so I scanned the diagram and posted it.


19 October, 1998 - Posted a gallery page with images of the 1998 LEAP Sand Castle Contest held on San Francisco's Ocean Beach in early October. This contest teamed prominent architectural firms with fifth grade classes from local schools. I also added key map links to gallery pages 103 through 122 thus providing a reverse reference to the geographic location of the images and a guide to additional images taken nearby.


17 October, 1998 - Took a couple of hours and updated the twenty or so key maps for the Bay Area gallery pages. The maps are now up to date through gallery page 127. If you have not browsed the images using this geographic index, give it a try (go to top level map).


14 October, 1998 - Added a page to my KAP Curriculum Vitae describing an interview with the ZDTV Cable Television Channel and a related gallery page showing images taken near San Francisco's Marina Green. Also posted was an introductory page for a tour of the American Southwest that will soon lead to several new gallery pages.


13 October, 1998 - This has been an interesting couple of weeks. First a little background. I edit this site as a set of local files using Microsoft's FrontPage 98 (which I continue to enjoy). The working version of the site is kept on an Iomega Jaz cartridge that contains all of my application data. This allows me to carry the cartridge to any of the three machines I use (university office, energy center, home) and have ready access to my data. My trusty Jaz cartridge recently died after almost two years of service. No problem --  I have recent backups! --  so I make a new data cartridge. It then dies. And then a third. I was disconsolate since loss of the cartridge system perturbs my entire system. I cannot check my e-mail, edit WWW pages, gain easy access to class materials etc.

Iomega, bless their souls, has been standing behind their product. They have helped me try to determine which of my Jaz drives is attacking the sheep and agreed to replace an out-of-warrantee drive and the cartridges it has killed in an effort to fix the problem. In the meantime, I have been doing more computer repair than real work.

Still I have found a bit of time to work on this site by editing files directly on the server. I have added the new Search page to the site's graphic header and footer menu. I've trimmed this What's New page by moving older entries to the What's Not So New Page and brought the page describing year four of the Aerial Eye up to date.


23 September, 1998 - At long last I have been able to add a full text search feature to the KAP WWW site. This capacity has been long overdue as the site has grown larger and larger. The site's recent move to a server with FrontPage Extensions proved to be the key. I plan to add this address to the site's graphic header. In the meantime follow this link to the Search Page and give it a try.


22 September, 1998 - Mea Cupla. The KAP WWW site has been languishing for a couple of months now. This has been in large part to a state of transition in my department's computer environment. As some of you may have noticed, this site has bounced around in terms of its host machine over the last few months. We have finally landed in a location (http://www.arch.ced.berkeley.edu/kap/index.html) that should be stable for awhile so bookmark and use this address. The old addresses will continue to work for a few months (via redirects) and then be withdrawn.

The KAP Discussion Group has also been moved to the new server (http://www.arch.ced.berkeley.edu/kapdiscuss/) and seems to be working properly. I would greatly appreciate a few posts to get it going again and to help me test its stability.


22 August, 1998 - I have been rearranging the KAP WWW site due to server changes in our college. The WWW site proper and the discussion group will both be located on a new server: www.arch.ced.berkeley.edu. At this point in time the discussion group is available for reading but you cannot post messages. I hope to have this fixed soon.

Regarding the discussion group: I've been working the problem fairly hard. It is a little tricky running the site with no budget as I have to borrow space on this server and that. I was using an NT server associated with one of our research projects for the discussion group. It just disintegrated one night for some reason and the person that set it up is gone. I have since migrated the KAP site to:

    http://www.arch.ced.berkeley.edu/kap/index.html

including the discussion page. Unfortunately, I am a couple of administrative layers away from that server and it does not have the current version of MS FrontPage Extensions. I have to have the current version to get the discussion page active due to a "nortbot" bug in the previous versions. I have hope to get it running this week.


22 July, 1998 - Continuing my series of images from last summer's trip to Georgia I have posted gallery pages showing Pelikan Spit in the morning, the King & Prince Hotel, and the St. Simon's Lighthouse.

 


30 June, 1998 - It turns out I have been on the road for the last few weeks travelling through the American Southwest, and what a fine trip it was.  I have returned with a few kite aerial photographs of that handsome landscape and will post them when time allows.


3 June, 1998 - I have added a page discussing techniques for positioning the camera to the Background Section.  I am interested to hear about your methods for determining whether the camera is aligned with its target. This page needs some additional work so you might best consider it a provisional posting.


29 May, 1998 - Well, I have to say I appreciate your perseverance. Having patiently waited for the return of this WWW site many of you might have noticed the subsequent disappearance of the KAP WWW Discussion Page. Said page is now located at http://www-cedr.ced.berkeley.edu/kap -- please update your bookmarks.


27 May, 1998 - On a brighter note I have posted two new gallery pages containing photographs from a trip to the Georgia coast last summer.   The first contains scenes from East Beach on St. Simon's Island while the second features photos of my brother's boat on the Intracoastal Waterway.


27 May, 1998 - After being down for five days the KAP WWW site is up and running again. It should be stable for the near term.  My apologies for any inconvenience the outage may have caused.  The problem was rooted in a reconfiguration of our college's servers that terminated all "personal" www offerings. It took a while to get the site restored.

Sometime soon I will have to move to a new server.   We are trying to work out a method that will be transparent to the site's users.


15 May, 1998 - I've added a second page on KAP Safety and revised the  first page related to KAP Safety.  Thanks for your safety related suggestions so far. 

I am pleased to note that the KAP Discussion Page has become more lively of late.  Why don't you visit and leave a question or comment? We learn from each other. The new system seems to process forms more quickly though I still need to trim the message roster. 


1 May, 1998 - I've posted the first page related to KAP Safety.  Please take a look at this draft and provide some feedback.  I have been thinking about safety recently and would like to assemble a useful set of recommended practices.


23 April, 1998 - I have reworked the KAP Discussion Page and it is now operating smoothly.  The page has been moved to http://bldgsci07.ced.berkeley.edu/kap for the time being.  Please give it a visit and leave a comment -- I am serious here, the vitality of the discussion page depends on your willingness to contribute.

I am currently working on a KAP Safety page with sections on kite handling, flight settings, aircraft, tree hazards, water hazards, and roadways.  Do you have suggestions or anecdotes to illustrate these?  If so leave them on the discussion page.


21 April, 1998 - Hello all.  I am sorry to report that the KAP Discussion Page is still down.  You can still go visit and review the messages but the system will not allow you to post a new message.  Turns out this is a bug in Microsoft's FrontPage Server Extensions and MS has issued a fix.  To install the new extensions I will have to migrate the discussion group to our NT Server so look for an address change soon.


20 April, 1998 - After a few months of procrastination I have finally assembled a page containing Bill Nelson's description of his "ice trigger."  My thanks to Bill for his contribution and his patience. 

After spending many hours in Pt. Richmond this winter (related to the boy's junior sailing program) I am also offering the gallery pages  Brickyard Landing Condominiums  and Brickyard Landing Condominiums #2. I think they turned out nicer than they sound.  Finally,  I've also posted a gallery page with new images from Battery Mendell in the Marin Headlands.


10 April, 1998 - Well it looks like I am on something of a roll, cleaning out my image folders to catch up on gallery pages.  So here are a few more including two from the UC Berkeley Campus:  Central Campus at Sunset and Return to Wurster Hall. I've also posted a page with images from a late summer visit with Marc Guetre at Marin Headlands.  Finally, there is a new page with photographs from The Port of Oakland.  


9 April, 1998 - Added a gallery page showing houses under construction in Richmond, California.


8 April, 1998 - I am working on the KAP Discussion Group - a project that is one year old today. I have enjoyed the comments folks have left in this forum but it has grown too large and ungainly.  The discussion group was easily created with Microsoft FrontPage.  It is a bit more difficult to manage because Microsoft has 1) hidden all of the files used in running the pages and 2) not provided instructions for maintenance.  So I am attempting to archive the older threads to a separate page where they can be read.  This will allow the page with active discussions to stay trim and thus load more rapidly.

As I work on this there may be a few days when you cannot submit a post.  I will also probably have to change the URL for the discussion group as well.  I will keep you posted.

In unrelated matters, there was an article on this KAP site in this month's Shutterbug.


8 April, 1998 - The family and I have been heading out to Point Reyes on weekends to enjoy the fine Spring weather (finally!) So here are some more images from the southern end of the seashore's peninsula:  new shots from near Chimney Rock and images from along the bluff near Drake's Beach. Both sets were taken in winds much higher than my previous experience.  This made for an exhilarating, if somewhat tense, experience.


6 April, 1998 - I am clearing out some of my image folders by creating a few new gallery pages.  This set features images from around my neighborhood, a topic of interest to my neighbors, my mother, and perhaps a few others.   These include CAL Sports Stadia, Harmon Gym under Renovation, Near the Pacific School of Religion, and Near the Pacific School of Religion #2.

There is also a new gallery page with images of Surfing at Drake's Beach in Pt. Reyes.


4 April, 1998 - Posted two new gallery pages taken along Marin County's Pacific Coastline - Spring on Bolinas Ridge and Spring on Bolinas Ridge #2.  In the works is a page from Bill Nelson describing his novel approach for a low cost shutter release.


1 April, 1998 - I'm sorry that it has been so quiet at this site lately.  It looks like I will be able to devote some time to it as the summer approaches.  To start with I've gone through and made a fair number of small fixes - let me know if something needs attention.  I've also updated the Aerial Eye page and split it into a set of smaller pages.   I've split the long table of contents page into a summary page and a detailed page

Also posted are new gallery pages: Point Bonita Lighthouse and Point Bonita Lighthouse #2.


11 January, 1998 - I receive a series of much appreciated and entertaining e-mails in response to this site.  Here is a recent one:

"The new Getty Museum in Los Angeles recently opened its doors. In the coming year we expect more than a million people to visit this spectacular architectural complex. The Getty Information Institute, in collaboration with other Getty Institutes, has installed a Digital Experience room in the Museum. Its purpose is to provide a gateway to online culture, where visitors will be able to learn, explore and create through the World Wide Web. The exhibition will be open to the public free of charge for approximately one year.

The room features fourteen computers and three large projection screens. Visitors will have the opportunity to visit interesting cultural sites by embarking on one of our several curated *tours*. I am pleased to inform you that your web site will be one of those featured on our 'Picture This' tour."

The Getty Museum just opened in Southern California after a decade or so of construction.  It is a major new star in our cultural constellation and it cheers me to think of KAP on display in this setting.  

Happy New Year - may 1998 bring you the fairest of winds and a camera intent on steady flight.


29 December, 1997 - I've added a description of my current Picavet design to the Picavet suspension page.


8 December, 1997 - I've been at work assembling gallery pages containing recent images. The first of these has shots from the Richmond Yacht Club. The boys are back in the winter sailing program so I've had time to shoot the tiny El Toros, a few general views, and views of boats. I also posted a page with shots of a nearby oil tank farm, these are nicer than they sound. Two more pages include views of the Berkeley Waterfront taken during an offshore wind day and some remarkable low-level shots from the Port of Oakland.


8 December, 1997 - Paul Debevec has updated his Campanile Movie page to include three movie clips from the animated film we showed at SIGGRAPH '97. Though tiny, the clips communicate the feeling of the film and the neatness of the virtual photographs.


8 December, 1997 - I found a bit of time to add the most recent gallery pages to the location maps section so this graphic guide to the gallery photo locations is now up to date. Each gallery page also soon have a link to its respective location map.


9 November, 1997 - The site now has a new front door. This page is my first application of a Java Script (albeit small.) If you make a visit pause at the page for awhile. It should refresh with a new title image every 5 minutes.


29 October, 1997 - I've just posted a substantial reworking of the Background area of the site. The background section now has a decent organizational structure and a dozen or so new pages. additional pages are in the works. If you have bookmarks to old pages within the background section they will still work but you will be led to old pages. Take a look at the new ones.


28 October, 1997 - Posted new gallery pages with images of the DNA sculpture at the Lawrence Hall of Science (LHS) and other views of the LHS Plaza. A third page contains images from a return to the Pigeon Point Lighthouse.


28 October, 1997 - My busy period continues but I have had some non-WWW-related KAP activities. In the last month or so I've authored articles on my kite aerial photographs in Sport and Design Drachen and American Kite magazines. Furthermore, I have a show of 57 color images opening tomorrow at the Irene Carlson Gallery in Southern California. The gallery is directed by Gary Colby, Associate Professor of Photography at the University of La Verne.

In the last couple of months I accrued and processed enough images for over a dozen new gallery pages. I've also reworked the Background Section and it is now in much better shape. I will be posting it over the next week or so. It may have a few rough edges at first but I'll clean it up as time allows.

Sorry it has been so long without a post. I'll try to keep some new material flowing.


10 September, 1997 - After a much too long period I've finally found the time to post a page of notes by Peter Bults on the basics of radio control equipment.



14 August, 1997 - What can I say. It has been an extraordinarily busy summer, one full of important and/or interesting projects that have left insufficient time for matters KAP (including this WWW site.) I just took my first KAP images in three weeks and it was nice to be underneath a kite again. As it turns out I have a week-long trip coming up to Georgia and will arrive back in Berkeley just in time for the beginning of classes. So, it may be a few more weeks before activity picks up at the KAP WWW site.

When I can gather the time I have quite a few new pages to post including the long-promised Peter Bults radio page, the revised Background Section, and new gallery pages.


21 July, 1997 - More gallery pages from the summer's shooting. The first contains shots of cilantro fields in California's Salinas Valley. This is followed by samples of my first photographs taken in the Sierra Nevada including the Boy Scout Camp at Lake Utica, more shots of Lake Utica, and a few shots of canoes on Lake Utica.


19 July, 1997 - Images have been piling up on my hard drive for weeks now so I just had a quick session to produce a few backlogged gallery pages. The first of these contain shots of the Natural Bridges area in Santa Cruz and surfers at Santa Cruz's Steamer Lane.

The next is a set of midday aerials of Berkeley's upscale Fourth Street shopping district followed by another set of midday shots of corn and hay fields in California's Central Valley.

The remaining gallery pages are from a recent trip to Santa Barbara and include images from the Santa Barbara Municipal Pier, the Santa Barbara beachfront at sunset, and members of the Society of Building Science Educators on the beach.


16 July, 1997 - I become increasingly appreciative of the fun-dampening capacities of trees. Simon Harbord recently contributed a tree tale certain to spook those that fly near the arbors. See how Simon worked his way out of a sticky mess.

Soon to come: a radio page kindly contributed by the talented Peter Bults.


16 July, 1997 - Our UNIX system seems to be going through its usual summer instabilities. A 9 gigabyte disk failed and as luck would have it the KAP site disappeared. We have temporarily reestablished the site using backup files in a way that should be transparent to you except for the occasional outage. So, if you receive a "file not found" message give us a few hours and try again. A new drive should be here this week and stability should return.

You might also note that the site has encountered its usual slowdown in new posts. I'm happy to report that this is because I am outside in the long summer days taking kite photographs (sort of like a squirrel gathering nuts before winter.) This means I have material for quite a few gallery pages. I've also been reworking the Background Section -- it will soon have a new organizational structure and several pages of new material.

On another front, this has been a summer of going public with my kite photographs. I've done a story in our alumni publication - the CAL Monthly - plus its cover. That led to a nice article in the June 15 San Francisco Chronicle which in turn led to a July 4 interview on CNN (see thread in the discussion page).Articles have also appeared in the Ottawa Citizen and the LA Times and will appear in upcoming issues of Sport and Design Drachen and American Kite. An exhibit of prints is scheduled for October through December at the Carlson Gallery of Photography, University of La Verne in Southern California. I can report I am now the darling of local camera clubs.


25 June, 1997 - Simon Harbord has kindly sent text and images from his recent outings in Scotland. Simon is a particularly original KAPer with a delightful attitude and results that endorse his approach. One gallery page covers Castles and History and the other Abstracts and Objects.

Keep those posts coming to the discussion page.


19 June, 1997 - Seems like June has been a pretty busy month so far -- full of work and travel. I've been having at much needed modifications to the background page but it will probably take another month or so to get those posted. Due to travels I've only gotten out once this month to take KAP images. I still have quite a few images to post however and will work on that as well. Also in the works are new gallery pages for Wolfgang Bieck and Simon Harbord -- these will definitely pique your interest.

The San Franisco Chronicle ran a full-page article on my KAP pursuits last week. That was a kick.

I worry that the discussion page has become altogether moribund -- a post or two would really be appreciated. Take a moment and breath a little life into it. If the discussion page doesn't pick up I will probably have to resort to euthanasia (or is that ethernasia?)


31 May, 1997 - I'm catching up a bit in posting gallery images. Here are four new pages with springtime images from Coyote Hills including ground textures and shots of the west end of Golden Gate Park with detailed views of the Dutch Windmill.

I've also updated the Slide Rule Barter Offer page. My next project is going to be a recasting of the Background Section of the site as it has not received much attention in the last year or so.


27 May, 1997 - I added two new gallery pages with images from Drake's Beach at Pt. Reyes National Seashore. The first provides general views of Drake's Beach while the second contains more abstract images of waves.


25 May, 1997 - We heard from SIGGRAPH today and the animation we created for the SIGGRAPH Electronic Theatre has been accepted -- excitement abounds. The project was also the subject of a recent article in the LA Times article. Paul Debevec recently prepared a supplemental multimedia web page for readers of the LA Times article. You can view it too.


25 May, 1997 - Today was graduation day for the Department of Architecture and the end of a particularly arduous Spring Semester. I'm celebrating by posting some gallery page images from several of my recent KAP outings. Now available are images of lawn bowling in Golden Gate Park as well as the Conservatory in Golden Gate Park. I also placed new pages with images of UC Berkeley's Doe Library and the Frank Lloyd Wright designed Marin County Civic Center.

Gallery pages in progress have more wave images from Drake's Beach at Pt. Reyes, more Campanile shots, images from springtime at the Coyote Hills and shots from Pt. Reyes Station and Nicasio.


25 May, 1997 - I found a bit of time to recast the KAP Discussion pages so these should now be free of their recent formatting anomalies. Take a look - and leave a message.

I've added the most recent gallery pages to the location maps section so this graphic guide to the gallery photo locations is now up to date. Each gallery page also has a link to its respective location map.


13 May, 1997 - I've just posted a gallery page with images from Wolfgang Bieck of Germany. Those familiar with the KAP WWW site will recall that a description of Wolfgang's technique and equipment inaugurated the Others section of the site. I'm delighted now to add these examples of kite aerial photography at its finest.


6 May, 1997 - After being down for the last month we have finally restored the KAP discussion page (sound of your author knocking on wood.) My UNIX administrator promises that this one will be stable.

It would be a great help if you could exercise the revived page by leaving your comments, questions, and answers on KAP-related matters.

We have created a new WWW server for this purpose -- www3.ced.berkeley.edu/kap -- so the address of the discussion page has changed. You might update your browser bookmarks accordingly. All other pages at this site remain at www.ced.berkeley.edu for the time being but will eventually move to www3. I'm in the process of updating my navigation bars.


3 May, 1997 - A while back Jan van der Elsen sent a packet of his first KAP images from Northern Scotland. I've posted these materials as an Jan van der Elsen introduction and Jan van der Elsen gallery page in the Others section. I've also been receiving images from Wolfgang Bieck -- look soon for the most stunning gallery page in the whole WWW site as I post examples of Wolfgang's superb work.

There is hope too on the Discussion Page front. I should be able to announce next week that the discussion page is up an running again. Meanwhile, I'm flying on a temporary Picavet as I build components to replace those I recently lost to carelesness (left Picavet and Hangups on the ground). Look soon for a page describing three new Picavets including one low-cost version that is working quite well.


25 April, 1997 - Here is a new gallery page with images from Pierce Ranch on a clear day. I've not been shooting for the past two weeks. This is in part due to my schedule at school and in part due to my inadvertent loss of Picavet and Hangups. I'm building new ones as we speak (or I guess as I write.) In a fit of silliness, I've posted a collection of incidental images taken by firing a test round on the KAP rig. They provide a slightly quirky portrait of the KAPer at work.


24 April, 1997 - I'm doing a little maintenance work around the site -- getting index pages up to date, establishing pointers to orphaned pages, checking old worn-out links, etc. If you know of something that needs attention please drop me a note. Soon to come: a much needed revamping of the Background Section.


24 April, 1997 - The discussion page is dead -- at least for the next few days but it will be back. Our UNIX folks have decided to setup a new server as part of their strategy to restore Frontpage and thus Discussion Group function. The good news is that they promise to do this by Monday. So be patient, the discussion group will return.

23 April, 1997 - The Discussion Page was down over the last weekend. Our UNIX administrator had been "experimenting with a few settings" at the end of day Friday. He fixed things up and all was well for a day or so. Then he started modifying again and it (predictably?) went down again. The discussion software has not returned as of yet. I will post a note when it returns. In the meantime, my apologies for any inconvenience the outage has called. .


9 April, 1997 - Joy of joys. After fiddling with it for over three months I finally have a KAP Discussion Page up and running. It is my hope that this medium will foster a peer-to-peer exchange of KAP information. I've benefited greatly from the 2,000 plus e-mail messages the site has produced. Post these thoughts now to the discussion page and share the wealth.

I would particularly appreciate the posting of messages during the next few weeks to help get the discussion group going - help me 'prime the pump'. Thanks.


7 April, 1997 - I've put together the beginnings of a report on my ongoing project to document the Campanile on the UC Berkeley campus (see below). New new pages are an introduction to the project, an accounting of our preparatory work, images from a remarkable cloudy day shoot, and my first shot taken while flying from the top of the tower.


5 April, 1997 - I might as well confess that I've been spending little time on the KAP WWW site these days. This is in part due to the mid-semester crunch and in part due to an interesting project involving kites and our Computer Science Department. The good news is that I'm out flying every weekend these days and the images are contributing to a very interesting method of developing three-dimensional computer models of architectural space. I'm very busy working on it and happy as a clam to be involved. Expect a detailed, illustrated report as the project matures.

In the meantime be patient, there are other interesting items in the queue.


25 March, 1997 - New gallery pages with images taken during Simon Harbord's visit in late February. These images, from Steamer Lane in Santa Cruz, were taken during a brief stop on our way to Monterey. The first page shows the Mark Abbott Memorial Lighthouse while the second features surf and bluff shots of Steamer Lane itself.


3 March, 1997 - I've just finished a very pleasant visit with Simon Harbord who was in San Francisco for the weekend. I should be posting images related to this soon and perhaps an observation or two related to his equipment. Also in the queue is the addition of Jan van der Elsen to the Others page.

The MS FrontPage software-related revisions are taking longer than I anticipated -- the delays are much more a function of my schedule than useability of FrontPage (which I continue to like). In any event I ask your patience for another month or so as there will be a few uncoordinated aspects of the site. For instance, the header thread leading to a discussion section currently points to a non-functioning discussion page with cryptic references to rat cages. This will be cleared up as soon as our administrator installs the requisite server extensions.


25 February, 1997 - New gallery pages with images taken at the edge of the day from Telegraph Hill and the Pacific School of Religion.

 


16 February, 1997 - I've added a series of location maps to illustrate the areas covered in my gallery pages. There are 19 maps in the initial series. They are accessible from the new header and (soon) from the gallery pages themselves. The maps have mapped symbols that will take you directly to the gallery page images. A good place to start is the top level key map.


15 February, 1997 - While the site would appear to be quite quiet of late I've actually been working behind the scenes on some fairly major revisions. In particular I've loaded the site into Microsoft Front Page for Windows and used that editor to implement a subdirectory structure. I confess here that the site previously had all files thrown into a single directory. This worked fine when the site was small but at its current size of over 1,500 files it proved an awkward structure (or lack thereof.)

As the new structure goes into place you may find that bookmarks to pages within the site are no longer valid. The Home Page and What's New page will retain their previous addresses and should be valid.

In the process of rearranging I've also implement a new site header graphic (see above). It is set up in a way that allows easy changes later. It will take a few weeks before the headers are propogated throughout the site.


20 January, 1997 - I've not been posting during the last couple of weeks because -- joy of joys - I've gotten a new computer. I try to upgrade every three years and the time arrived. My previous work on this site was done using my trusty 50 MHz 80486 running Windows 3.1, a serviceable but increasingly inelegant environment. I'm now typing on a 200 MHz P6 running Windows NT 4.0 and as they say back home "Brother, I've seen the light." Transitions are not without cost and this one afforded a series of mud-wrestling matches related to SCSI adapters and learning the workarounds of a new system. It looks like I will have to lay low another week or two as the Spring semester cranks up.

When I can get to posting again there is much in the queue. I have three gallery pages ready to go, a new set of location maps with image map links for each gallery page, and I will add Steve Eisenhauer to the Others section. Steve, head of the American Kite Associations' Kite Aerial Photography Committee is sending a chronicle describing his recent KAP outings. It is interesting reading.

Over the holidays I picked up David Siegel's Creating Killer Web Sites. This is recommended reading for those of you creating pages out there. I will work on tweaking my site toward third-generation status as 1997 goes on. For example, I've begun working on an "entry tunnel" for the site's home page. If you haven't been there in awhile stop by and take a look.


8 January, 1997 - After rains of biblical proportion it has finally cleared for a while in California. So I've taken the first KAP Images of the new year and I think it is going to be a good one. This post includes two new gallery pages: images from Bolinas Ridge Road #1and images from Bolinas Ridge Road #2 . These images were taken over some of the prettiest coastal hills in California.

 


5 January, 1997 - I've posted the first gallery pages of the new year including images from San Francisco's Telegraph Hill, a page of pumpkins, pigs, and piers, and a collection of KAP portraits.

 


1 January, 1997 - I've started the New Year by assembling three Sampler Pages containing the best of my KAP images. Sampler No. 1 has something of a nautical motif, Sampler No. 2 is more architectural, and Sampler No. 3 lacks a theme altogether.

 


11 December, 1996 - I've begun a new feature for the KAP WWW site: pages addressing frequently asked questions. Q&A Page No. 1 addresses digital cameras, flying heights, and my image manipulation programs among other topics. I've also added a reprint of a 1993 FAQ posting by Anne Rock. Completing this post is a new gallery page with yet more images of UC Berkeley's central campus.

 


3 December, 1996 - I've added a new menu page leading to descriptions of my three KAP rigs and I've completed descriptions of KAP Rig #2 based on the Canon Rebel X SLR and KAP Rig #3 based on the Yashica T4 Super. Also new is a gallery page with more images of UC Berkeley's central campus.

 


2 December, 1996 - Posted new gallery pages with wide angle images of Battery Mendell in the Marin Headlands and same day photographs of the adjacent Point Bonita. Also added a page on Floridian Bob Pebly to the Others section.

 


27 November, 1996 - During Thanksgiving I plan to do a bit of work on the pages. I've added a description of my relatively new Sutton Flowform 60 to the soft kite page. I've also added two more issues to the Aerial Eye page and an update on slide rules received to the the slide rule barter offer page. I've added descriptions of the Canon Rebel X and Yashica T4 Super, cameras I am now flying, to the camera page. More to come soon.



10 November, 1996 - More gallery pages with images from Point Richmond Revisited and the Richmond Yacht Club.



31 October, 1996 - This is WWII week at the KAP WWW site honoring the posting of two new gallery pages: one with views of the Jeremiah O'Brien, a WWII Liberty Ship and the other with shots of a Stearman PT-17 biplane trainer I found during a drive in Sonoma Valley.



28 October, 1996 - I've added Belgian photographer Michel Dusariez to the Others page and linked this to a new page describing his panoptic photography technique. There you will find one of the first and only panoptic kite aerial photographs (taken by Dusariez in 1992). I also added a new gallery page with pictures of the UC Berkeley Campanile taken with my new Canon SLR rig and a wide-angle 24-mm lens.



23 October, 1996 - This is sailboat week at the KAP WWW site. New gallery pages are available with images taken above Bay Area marinas. The first shows high altitude views from near the St. Francis Yacht Club in San Francisco. The second shows closer views from near the St. Francis. Finally, there is a new page with some sunset shots from above the Richmond Yacht Club.



21 October, 1996 - Our UNIX blues continue but progress is being made. On October 10 two rats (rodents) entered a power distribution system on the Stanford University campus and caused a short circuit that ended their lives. It also blacked out the campus and interrupted internet services for locations across the Bay Area including UC Berkeley. My college's server went down and for some reason stayed down for 10 days. Part of the problem is a continued assault by hackers. These rats (humans) have caused much trouble at a time when we do not have a permanent UNIX administrator. The good news is we are interviewing now for a UNIX administrator and we have just ordered a new SUN to replace our six year old former server.



9 October, 1996 - A new gallery page with my first images from an airborne SLR. These shots show the Pigeon Point Lighthouse south of Half Moon Bay on the San Mateo Coastline.



29 September, 1996 - Posted a page of images showing kayaks at Oakland's Jack London Square. This is gallery page number 50 for the KAP WWW site. I've been heading out to fly the new rigs on Sundays but it looks like we are in the Fall doldrums.



23 September, 1996 - Here are three new gallery pages. The first offers additional images from Coyote Hill. Number two is from Crissy Field in San Francisco and number three shows Pier 39 on the San Francisco Waterfront. I had so much fun building KAP Rig #2 that I've made a third one to replace Kap Rig #1. This is part of the reason I've not been posting lately. When the days get short I'll have more time for the computer.



9 September, 1996 - Well, I'm back in the swing of things and while life is still hectic I intend to find some time to post new pages. For starters here is a page of images from Coyote Hills on San Francisco Bay. I can also report that KAP Rig #2 is finished and has been successfully flown. You can look for a presentation of same in these pages soon.



20 August, 1996 - Well it has been three weeks since my last posting so I figured I should leave a note. I'm on a hiatus from the site for a few weeks while I take care of some pressing work. This may last a few more weeks while I deal with the vortex of the approaching semester (classes start in a week.)

As soon as time allows I have plenty to post. I've been shooting every Sunday and have nice shots from the San Francisco Waterfront, the St. Francis Yacht Club, Crissy Field, Telegraph Hill, Jack London Square, Coyote Hills, a wedding in Wine Country, a track stadium, and others - literally a dozen gallery pages worth. I reached the milestone of KAP roll No. 100 this Sunday. I've also started KAP Rig #2, a larger rig build around a Canon Rebel X SLR with a 24mm lens. So, be patient and more will follow.



1 August, 1996 - The long summer days continue to bear fruit. In this case its new gallery pages from the Monterey Bay Aquarium and the Children's Playground in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park. I also had a chance this week to meet Michel Dusariez of Belgium who was visiting San Francisco. It was a pleasant encounter leading to much admiration for Michel's ingenuity with photographic apparati.



25 July, 1996 - Here are some new gallery pages from Limantour Beach at Pt. Reyes National Seashore: A Limantour Beach Sunday and Bentons on the Beach.



18 July, 1996 - Posted a gallery page describing a trial run at documenting the start of a sailboat race using kite aerial photographs. In this case it was the Laser/Radial US National Championship.



17 July, 1996 - Things have been running a bit rocky with our WWW page server. The College's UNIX Administrator took a powder (unexplained absence). While this is bad enough it also appears that he annoyed (egregiously) a vindictive and talented hacker who is venting his frustration by destabilizing our system. Therefore the KAP WWW site has been bouncing between online and off-line. We are working on it and hope that things will get better soon. If you receive a file not found or permission denied message then try back later. We will be back.



15 July, 1996 - Posted gallery pages with images from Jack London Square in Oakland. The first has images of the square's large American flag and the Berkeley Pier (offtopic). The second presents photos of the streetscape including a cafe.



13 July, 1996 - Over the next few days I'll be posting gallery pages with images from a trip to Kaua'i. The first of these has views of campsites and beaches while the second provides early morning views near a beach in Kapa'a. New page number three has more beach scenes from Kapa'a and number four presents beach abstractions.



10 July, 1996 - Posted a page describing my field kit for kite aerial photography - a bag containing the essential KAP supplies.



25 April, 1996 - Assembled and posted the several new gallery pages. These include images from the Lawrence Hall of Science and its DNA sculpture plus more shots from the the Central Campus area of UC Berkeley.



10 April, 1996 - One of CAL's newspapers, the Berkeleyan, ran an article on my KAP pages. I think Dawn Finch, the author, did a nice job.



2 April, 1996 - Added new gallery pages with miscellaneous images from Berkeley and images from the San Francisco Waterfront. It was a great relief to take some photos again.



30 March, 1996 - Revised the kite page by splitting it into two pages - one on Framed Kites and the other on Soft Kites. Added mention of my newer kites, a double delta conyne and a Sutton Flowform 30.



28 March, 1996 - Added several new pages describing kite aerial photographer Simon Harbord's approach. Also posted a new gallery page with images from the back of a sailboat. This week is a milestone of sorts. Its been one year since I took my first kite aerial photograph.



26 March, 1996 - Added a text page containing the Spring Newsletter of the KAPWA Foundation. Also revised the Background Page a bit.



20 March, 1996 - Hello to those of you that check What's New occasionally. I'm afraid I've not posted much recently. You can chalk this up to a brutal schedule this semester. I'm teaching two courses, one quite large and the other one new. This and my research work is leaving little time for KAP matters including the web pages. Worse yet I've not gotten out to take photos for a month. However, be of good cheer - I do plan to post new material in the next couple of weeks including some interesting equipment schemes from Simon Harbord of Scotland and a few images I took from the back of a sailboat.



14 March, 1996 - Seems the KAP WWW site was nominated for the "Top Photo Site of the Week" by Konstantin Voshanov of Moscow, Russia and we subsequently won that honor. Thanks Konstantin. We also received a very thoughtful review by Chris Webb of Sight Photo. Thanks too to Chris. My KAP photos are also being used in a couple of University publications.



27 January, 1996 - Added another new gallery page with images of gun emplacements on the Marin Headlands. Added a new resource to the Bay Area Winds Page.



14 January, 1996 - Added a new gallery page with images from the Berkeley Marina.



4 January, 1996 - Assembled and posted the first pages of the new year - in this case gallery pages of New Year's images from the UC Berkeley Campus. One page has images of the Campanile and the other shows the Central Campus area.



13 December, 1995 - I've started a modest graphic reworking of the site. Nothing too big, as before I am mindful of visitors with non-Netscape or older browsers. Thus I'm staying away from tables (for the most part), frames, backgrounds, etc. As the revision progresses you will notice a change in the inline images with links (now with white borders and shadows rather than standard link borders), a new footer format, quick links in the header, and a few other revisions. If any of these cause problems with your WWW client please let me know. The following roster will mark my progress - pages with links have been updated:







9 December, 1995 - Took care of a long list of housekeeping tasks. My thanks to those of you that have submitted requests (e.g.; please post camera weights), caught misspellings, and noted expired links. I also added information on recent issues to the Aerial Eye page.



2 December, 1995 - Assembled and posted new gallery pages of more Thanksgiving break images from Pt. Reyes including scenes from Limantour Beach, the Inverness Yacht Club, and Pierce Ranch.



30 November, 1995 - This site is now six months old, a milestone of sorts. During this time, Notes on Kite Aerial Photography has grown to 25 web pages with 145 images. I've taken about 24 rolls of images from my kites. The site has been visited around 24,000 times. I've received a couple of hundred e-mail notes ranging from much appreciated thanks to detailed application notes and reports on specific approaches.

As noted throughout the site I do enjoy hearing about the experience of others in taking photographs from kites. I will eventually try to compile a gallery section (with permissions of course) from the correspondence I receive.



29 November, 1995 - Assembled and posted a new gallery page of six photographs of waves. I think these plan view photographs of waves have a certain charm. Take a look.



21 November, 1995 - Finally added the beginnings of a page describing kites. This offering covers the kites I've used to date and how they have performed.



18 November, 1995 - Modified the Picavet suspension page to include details about my second Picavet and a device for attaching things like the Picavet to a kite line.



13 November, 1995 - Assembled and posted a new gallery page of five images from Chimney Rock at Pt. Reyes. These shots were my first after several weeks of frustratingly calm wind conditions.



8 November, 1995 - Another new page, this time describing the Picavet suspension that attaches the camera rig to the kite line.



4 November, 1995 - Posted a new page describing my first radio-controlled camera rig - KAP Rig No. 1 in the Equipment Section. The page describes a rig, based on a Brooks Leffler Aerial Eye article, that aims and fires a kite-lofted point-and-shoot camera.



26 October, 1995 - Just realized that some folks might still be going to the old pages on our REGIS machine site. So I established a redirect to the more up-to-date location (http://www.ced.berkeley.edu/~cris/kap).



23 October, 1995 - Posted a new page on Low Cost Approaches in the Equipment Section. Therein I describe a kite aerial photography rig based on a disposable camera and a dethermalizing timer.



20 October, 1995 - Added a couple of links to the background page leading to other kite aerial photography pages. I note that it has been awhile since I've posted new stuff. I guess it's a reflection of the fine October weather we've had in California and the fact that we are mid-semester. I do have a new gallery page to share with images from Santa Cruz. I have also sewn my first kite (a 5 foot Rokaku) and experienced some pleasant kite flying. When the weather turns raw you can expect more out of the keyboard.



21 September, 1995 - Got to work on my Other Kite Aerial Photographers thread. Posted the table of contents for this area and a page describing KAPer Wolfgang Bieck's approach.



17 September, 1995 - Assembled and posted this What's New page. I've been meaning to do this for awhile and finally found some time.



16 September, 1995 - Assembled and posted a new gallery page of six images from the Pacific School of Religion. As noted on the gallery page, these shots are my most daring to date in terms of a challenging flying site and I am delighted they turned out as well as they did.



8 September, 1995 - Lost my vanity access counter when the local server eliminated the program. The KAP home page access counter had accumulated about 16,450 hits before it disappeared.



31 August, 1995 - I arrived at work to find the College's UNIX environment responding slowly. It turned out that the kite pages were responsible. Netscape, bless their souls, added us to their What's New roster for a week. This raised our access rate from a few dozen per day to a few thousand a day. To keep our UNIX administrator from doing something drastic I moved the KAP files temporarily to www.regis.berkeley. My thanks to James Ganong for a safe haven during these busier times.



29 August, 1995 - Revised links to the Hawaii rec.kite ftp archives to reflect a change in machine names. Added a link to Crowell's Kite Aerial Photography page, the only other KAP WWW site I've found on the net.



27 August, 1995 - Developed a page displaying recent (three-day) wind data for several locations in the Bay Area. In this page I'm referring to several gif files on a server out of Stanford. I note that this page requires a single reload request to have all four wind graphs display successfully.



24 August, 1995 - Yahoo added a link to the KAP page in the Recreation: Hobbies and Crafts: Kites section after I submitted site information.



27 July, 1995 - Pointcom found the KAP site and gave us an award (bless their souls.) They say they are going to put us in a book to boot - life in the fast lane.




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URL: http://kap.ced.berkeley.edu/background/whatnew2.html