Notes on Kite Aerial Photography: Photo Gallery
Images
from a KAP excursion to Museum Island, the ancient center of Berlin, were lost
to poor developing in Paris. The aerial image on the right, one of a few to
survive, shows a portion of the Berliner Dom (a gaudy 20th century neobaroque
concoction with a nice organ) and a socialist office block that stands on the
site of the old royal palace (Canon 24-mm, July 2000)
A sad tale this. My first aerial photographs in Europe were taken at the
Lustgarten, a nice green on Berlin's Museum Island. There I flew the Rokkaku in
challenging (read low) wind conditions and managed to take a roll of film. That
roll of Ektachrome traveled to Paris undeveloped and was then submitted to a
photolab for E6 processing. Something went badly awry and the slides were
ruined. In over 500 rolls of kite lofted photos this is the first roll lost to poor processing.
The
Alte Museum (Old Museum) by Karl Friedrich Schinkel built to house artworks
returned to Germany after Napoleon's reign.
(Canon 24-mm, July 2000)
The Alte Museum was constructed in 1822
(over a grave site). The 256-foot-long Lustgarten side opens along its full
width into a hall with 18 Ionic columns An enormous stone bowl sits in front of the building’s steps. Made of Swedish granite, this bowl was the created by
Christian Gottlieb Cantian in 1828. I am told that the The granite was taken from one of the
Margrave stones, a group of boulders that were transported by ice to
the Rauen Hills near Berlin, south of the Fürstenwalde/Spree rivers,
approximately 300,000 years ago.
The Swedish granite bowl in front of the
Alte Museum. Note the two seated people for scale.
(Canon 24-mm, July 2000)
While I was on the Lustgarten photographing the Berliner Dom I became
interested in the large stone bowl. At one point a young father lifted his
daughter up into the bowl and handed her a small bicycle. She rode happily
around and around for a half-hour or so. My photographs of the bowl came later
and a few of these were clear enough to scan. The ground textures surrounding
the bowl had that wonderful clarity of expression I came to expect of the Berlin
infrastructure -- and no doubt made the smooth texture of the bowl all the more
appealing to our young cyclist.
Close views of the large bowl (Canon 24-mm, July 2000)
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All rights reserved. Revised: Saturday, June 26, 2010
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