Notes on Kite Aerial Photography: Photo Gallery

University of California, Berkeley
The Campanile Revisited



A two-image montage of the west-facing Campanile clock (June 1996, 39K jpg)

go to location map
This has been the week of the Campanile. A while back I posted a gallery page of Campanile images taken on New Year's Eve day. This page provides some background on the Campanile -- aka Sather Tower -- and its role as a campus landmark. Since those winter exposures I've stopped by the Campanile a few times and flown the kite a few times. This week I was able to get enough lift to shoot three rolls of film near the tower.

For the images on this page I was assisted by Ph.D. student Alison Kwok. I flew the Sutton Flowform 30 in marginal conditions. I really wanted to take photographs so I tried a new light wind strategy for the first time -- flying the large Sutton on thinner, 100# line. This seemed to work fine. Even with the light line it was difficult to get the camera rig up above 200 feet to the interesting part of the Campanile. I resorted to waiting for a favorable spell of wind and running with the kiteline to generate additional lift. Though the strategy generally works well it was limited in this case due to constrained space.

The following images were taken around 7 p. m. as I walked home from work on a Thursday afternoon. The next page has Campanile images taken on a overcast Sunday afternoon.



A view past the Campanile to Birge Hall, Le Conte Hall, and Latimer Hall (June 1996, 51K jpg)

Even this late in the day the Campanile's light-colored, sunlit surfaces make correct exposures difficult. This scene turned our ok but several of the shots had the tower washed out (overexposed.)




South Hall, the oldest building on campus (June 1996, 53K jpg).

This is a closer view of South Hall taken as I was sending the camera rig upward. The wind was out of the southwest so I was flying from in front of South Hall.




Views of the Campanile Esplanade with its pollarded sycamores in leaf (June 1996, 59K jpg left and 68K jpg right).

It is interesting to compare these views of the esplanade's pollarded sycamores to earlier shots when the trees were bare.



The Campanile's viewing gallery (June 1996, 50K jpg).

A somewhat odd shot that seem to appeal to me alone. Perhaps I'm fond of Wurster Hall's cameo appearance in the right corner or is it the detailed stonework at such a height. Would they do the same today?




A view from the top (June 1996, 110K jpg).

A clock face and landscape view.




[ Home Page | Background | Equipment | Gallery | Maps | Discussion | Others | Search | What's New ]


Comments to author: crisp@socrates.berkeley.edu . All content, graphics and
images contained throughout are Copyright (C) 1995 - 2005 by Charles C. Benton
and are protected by United States and International copyright laws.
No text, graphic or image may be used whole or in part, individually,
or as part of a derivative work without express written permission.

All rights reserved. Revised: Thursday, July 18, 1996


URL: http://www.ced.berkeley.edu/~cris/kap/gallery/gal32.html