Murray Neill: KAP

KAP over Nelson's new skate park

Wed, 20 Aug 2008 07:18:29 GMT

It's been age since I've been able to get out and do some kite aerial photography. I was feeling a little rusty, but once the kite and camera were in the air.... well, it's like riding a bike really.

Started last summer, they recently finished building a skate park in Neale Park (Nelson's premiere kite flying ground and home of the Nelson Kite Festival). In my some of my photos of the last kite festival you can see the beginnings of the park in the background. To get back into some KAP after quite a break I decided that this would make a good location for a shoot. Late in the afternoon with nice long shadows and a strong gusty south-west wind, I launched my little 16 square foot flow-form with two long fuzzy tails. The tails were needed to give the kite some stability in the bumpy conditions up there. It took a lot of patience to get any steady shots.

Even though I got a few 'keepers' that I'm happy with I feel like there's plenty more good photos in this subject. Lucky they built it in such a good kite flying spot. I'll probably revisit it sometime over summer.

I miss kite flying

Thu, 12 Jun 2008 06:53:48 GMT

I'm at home with a cold today. I was flicking through some old photos, when I came across this. I realised this was the last time I flew a kite; way back in the middle of February, a kite aerial photography shoot over Mapua Wharf on a sunny Sunday afternoon. Now well into winter the usable wind is a rarity and I miss those afternoon sea-breezes.

Mapua Wharf on Sunday Afternoon

Sun, 17 Feb 2008 08:41:50 GMT

Sunday afternoon at busy little Mapua Wharf. There's several cafes doing a good trade, fishermen launching their boats, kids swimming, people biking and walking the waterline... and then there's me, apparently just flying a kite. No one seemed aware of the camera.

This is a 2-shot stitch-up. There's a bit of distortion going on which I didn't bother to try and fix because I kind of like the odd effect it has on the picture.

Shrunken Post Office

Fri, 01 Feb 2008 06:34:42 GMT

So I took all those photos of the Post Office yesterday so I could study it, and make a perfectly detailed, scale model of it on my kitchen table.

; )

The Middle of Town

Thu, 31 Jan 2008 09:27:43 GMT

My first attempt at some seriously urban kite aerial photography. This is the very center of Nelson's Business District. The Nelson Central Post Office building and clock tower is (imho) one of the ugliest, but it's ours. Even though its been there for a couple of decades (give or take), I think most Nelsonians are still wondering when they are going to finish building the tower and take the scafolding down. My kite in the middle of town attracted quite a few curious spectators. The camera was directly over the busiest intersection in town, but all safety checks had been down and the wind was steady and strong.

The suburb by the city. Just across the Maitai River is "The Wood". That's Neale Park in the distant background where we had our kite festival a couple of weeks ago.

You can see me in this picture flying my kite from the Maitai River bank, next to the bridge. That's my friend Ted on his Xtracycle crossing the bridge (my Xtracycle is parked just off-camera on the river bank, having transported me and all my KAP gear to the location). I didn't know he was there but he had followed my kiteline to say hello. It often happens when I'm KAPing; someone I know will spot my kite and find me. Kind of a neat spin-off of the activity.

I like this intersection because I am a cyclist and cyclists get priority here (at least from one direction), as the green lanes show. We're ALLOWED to queue-jump and when the light goes green, we get to go first. Nahhh-na-na-nah-na! I think it's a bit of an experiment to see if it works. I hope it catches on.

Last Light (from a kite)

Mon, 21 Jan 2008 08:10:25 GMT

Ray over the Haven

Sun, 20 Jan 2008 07:46:15 GMT

Today was the 17th annual Nelson Summertime Kite Festival. There was very little wind but the big kites were flying for a few hours this morning and intermittently during the afternoon. Heaps of people turned out anyway on this scorching hot Nelson Sunday. I managed to get a camera in the air with a few of the big kites this morning; something that is always pretty nerve wracking with all those giants flying around me. I just had to post this one shot of the Ray kite with Nelson Haven behind it, but I'll be uploading more during the evening as I sort through them and my dail-up connection catches up.

I have created a Flickr pool for pictures of the kite festival. It already has my photos from last year and this year in it. If you have some pictures, and you use Flickr.com, please join the group and add yours to the pool! The Flickr group is called "The Annual Nelson Summertime Kite Festival". (If you don't use Flickr, its free and painless.)

ps. It just hit me what it is about the Ray image above that appeals to me. There's no lines. You can't see any bridle-lines, no flying lines, nothing but kite.... and so the secret of how it is flying is not directly revealed. The magic of kite flying lives on!

Evening light over Waimea Esturary

Fri, 18 Jan 2008 08:53:42 GMT

The view over Waimea Estuary last night as seen from my kite. I am currently sorting through around 120 shots from two flights over the area; one last night (as seen above) and one a little further to the NE, from the end of Rough Island, this afternoon.
Did I mention I love summer?

Trafalger Park Panorama (and other KAP missions)

Wed, 16 Jan 2008 23:23:03 GMT

It's kite aerial photography season. There are lovely, steady sea-breezes every day now. This week I've set my self the goal to at least try and do some KAP everyday to build up my portfolio. It's Thursday morning and so far I've had two successful flights and two aborted attempts (one due to not setting exposure correctly before launch, and one due to not enough wind). By far the most successful flight so far, for me, is the four shot panorama of Trafalger Park above. I'm pretty stoked with it. The full image is nearly 8000 pixels across and has heaps of detail (if you are a Flickr member you can download full size image and check it out). The reason I wanted to shoot this location in the first place was this....

...Should be a great concert, although I won't be able to see it directly from my launch site. I'm hoping to get another shot of the park but this time with an event in full swing. (BTW all my KAP gear is on the Xtracycle in this shot, including 4 kites, 1000 feet of line, winder, backstrap, two cameras, and the KAP aerial rig, and hand held controller. Compact aye? Lets see ya do that with a helium blimp!)

Another shoot I did on Sunday was a location I've explored before, but I revisited purely for fun. It is a lovely place to fly. Lots of room, and very smooth winds. Wakapuaka Sand Flats. This time I attempted to get enough shots to stitch together 360 degree interactive panorama. I got the shots... and I'm halfway through the stitching process, so look out for a new QTVR to download soon. I got some other nice shots too. The colours of this landscape are quite dramatic from the air and they change with the seasons.

I like KAP shots like the one above that include the kite line and flyer. Many KAP photographers go to great lengths to remove these from their images. I like to leave them in as a bit of added interest, and to supplement a touch of vertigo. I'm in the Trafalger Park panorama shot too, although it's like a game of "Where's Wally?".

I hope to get out again today for more photos. The breeze is already teasing the tops of the pines on the ridge and the sky is blue from horizon to horizon. Ahhh, summer.

Which path?

Sat, 05 Jan 2008 22:32:49 GMT

A quick kite flight over Miyazu Japanese Gardens yesterday afternoon yielded this image. I was using a new kite aerial photography rig I have recently completed which has the ability to send a still image of the cameras screen to a hand-held controller on the ground (a modified Gameboy console) making it a little easier to aim at subjects like this. The image received from the air is low-res but you could certainly make out large contrasting features, like the yin-yang symbol here.

I kind of like the small dilemma the image poses. Which path will you choose?

Little Chapel (automatic) stitch job

Mon, 22 Oct 2007 03:24:01 GMT

This is me playing around with PTgui. Its pretty amazing software that will take a series of photos and stitch them together to form panoramic views. I made my aerial panorama of the Nelson Marina with this software. This shot is 4 photos, taken from a camera suspended under a kite, which was bouncing and swinging all over the sky in a very blustery south-west wind on Saturday. It shows why this little chapel, in the Wakapuaka Cemetery, can't be seen from the main road; a big stand of blue-gum trees.

Atawhai KAP

Sat, 20 Oct 2007 09:38:41 GMT

I got some nice dappled light in between the rain clouds over Atawhai Drive this afternoon just in time for a spot of kite aerial photography. You wouldn't know it from thie shot above, but the gusty SW wind was making the little 16 foot flow form kite buck all over the sky, even with two fuzzy stabilising tails attached. It was hard to get the camera still enough to shoot any pictures. When the patches of sun came blowing through I still managed to get a few keepers.

A little exposure

Mon, 15 Oct 2007 05:58:24 GMT

For the past two days some of my photography has been broadcast on 7Nelson, a local TV channel, at 5pm and just before 6pm. There is a wee title giving me credit. I gave them permission for it when they asked me a month or two ago. Only about 20 seconds worth. I haven't seen it because I don't have any TV reception at my house. I'm not sure how many times it will be on, but if someone could record it for me that would be great.

Delaware Bay KAP

Sat, 13 Oct 2007 10:42:09 GMT

Kayaking & KAP

Sat, 13 Oct 2007 06:25:43 GMT

A mobile phone shot on my way across the estuary to Delaware Bay on my kayak for a spot of kite aerial photography. The wind was steady over there and I got some nice shots from the air. I'm just going through them now and will be uploading some soon.

Boulder Bank KAP mission (again)

Sat, 22 Sep 2007 22:56:10 GMT

I've got heaps of KAP jobs to do. Waiting for the right conditions for kite aerial photography when there's a long list of places I want/need to shoot is one of the toughest things for me to do. I just want to get out there and risk my expensive equipment just so I can tick a few of them off.

I've been waiting to get back out onto the Boulder Bank to do shoot of the old baches out there, but for the last two weekends the weather forecasts have threatened rain. Its a loooong walk and I've been caught in heavy rain out there before. Yesterday the forecast was for rain again but the wind was good, so I went for it. I set of late afternoon hoping to catch the low evening sun and walk back by moonlight. It all went well. I didn't get rained on but unfortunately rain clouds settled on the horizon blocking the warm, low sunlight I was hoping for.

This is one of the first shots I took, before the cloud closed in. I'll have to go back to get the baches in the light I want, but it won't be today. Its bucketing down outside right now.

The view from the other end of the kite line.

Sat, 15 Sep 2007 12:07:04 GMT

I'm playing around with panoramas from my kite. The tricky part is keeping the kite and camera in one place for the few minutes it takes to get the 360 degrees of photos. This is made of nine photos taken a couple of weekends ago, above the marina in Port Nelson. The file is less than 1mb. Click here to see it in a separate player. Click and drag the image to look around. Shift key zooms in and Ctrl key zooms out. (Quicktime required)

Update.... after heaps more fiddly photoshop work, here is a seamless, widescreen, high-resolution version of the same view. Its about 5mb so if you don't have broadband be prepared for a bit of a wait.

Oh and btw the Kite 'n Click website is now under construction. It is still very much a work in progress but the enquiries about our services have been coming from all directions, thick and fast, so we thought we'd better get onto it. This is the company that put on my little exhibition last week.

Paths

Tue, 11 Sep 2007 06:44:02 GMT

An interesting abstract from the kite aerial photography shoot I did over the center of New Zealand hill recently.

If you're in Nelson this weekend...

Fri, 07 Sep 2007 11:04:16 GMT

I just got home from the opening of the first (off-line) public exhibition of my photography. I'm beaming. People showed up. They bought prints. They bought calendars. We held a successful auction for one A1 framed print of this shot. About 30 prints, up to A1 size, most of which are kite aerial photos, are on display for the next two day (Saturday 8th & Sunday 9th of September) at the Nayland College Library on Nayland Road in Stoke.

This has happened because a group of business studies students saw my work with kite aerial photography and wanted to build a real business around the idea. I take pictures... and they brainstorm, research, do paper work, make phone calls, market,organise, prioritise, advertise, pay the bills, do the books, book the gigs, mail invitations, hang the signage, vacuum the floor, chill the wine, serve the finger food, entertain, and hopefully count the money. All this on top of school work right in the middle of exam season. The company is called Kite 'n Click and if you are in Nelson NZ this weekend, come and have a look.

Nelson Marina KAP shoot

Sat, 01 Sep 2007 19:35:39 GMT

Perfect blue skies and a gentle Northerlie breeze yesterday afternoon allowed me to get some aerial shots over the Nelson Marina.

The unnamed

Mon, 27 Aug 2007 06:10:34 GMT

Taken with my kite aerial photography rig, this photo is looking directly down onto the oldest part of the oldest cemetery in town. The Wakapuaka Cemetery is no longer available for burials. There is a small area by the front gates for commerative plaques for departed who have been cremated recently. The cemetery is on a hill with some of the best views of Nelson City. At the top are the graves of some of Nelson's earliest settlers. Here the graves seem to be spaciously arranged in family groups and even some on their own. It's not until seen from the air that the unmarked graves become apparent. The rows of graves in this photograph are completed by tell-tale depressions in perfect formation; the graves of the unnamed and forgotten.

This was one of the most challenging KAP locations I've tried to date. There are lots of mature trees and the hill is quite steep. And of course, there are lots of graves and tombstones to avoid. The wind does strange things on the peak of a hill like this one. I had almost 1000 feet of line out before the kite was stable enough to attach the camera rig. A strange thing happened when I did attempt to send the camera up. As I was attaching the rig to the kite line, concentrating on the fiddly little clips and not really watching the kite, I noticed the line, which was at about 45 degrees was suddenly going straight up. I looked up to see my 16 square foot sutton flowform kite, with two fuzzy tails on, fly straight over top of me, as smooth as you please, and settle into a nice NW breeze. Literally 30 seconds earlier I was about to launch my camera into a SW breeze, and now with the same kite still in the air, it was NW and as smooth and strong as if it had been blowing in that direction all day.

KAP over the center of NZ

Sun, 19 Aug 2007 08:37:11 GMT

Botanical Hill, overlooking Nelson City. The monument at the top marks the geographical center of New Zealand. That is, it is the point at the center of the Nelson region, where surveying of the region began. Nelson being the central region of New Zealand, makes this the "geographical" center of the country. This shot was taken with my kite aerial photography rig. I was flying the kite from a ridge several hundred meters away along the track to Walter's Bluff. Rain clouds were developing around the late afternoon sun giving me perfect dappled light on the landscape below.

Sky in the tide

Mon, 06 Aug 2007 08:43:00 GMT

KAP 'no nonsense' kite-line winder

Fri, 03 Aug 2007 23:48:09 GMT

I've constructed this new piece of kite aerial photography equipment. I needed a line winder that could hold more line, and handle having the line wound on under pressure. Made from Tasmanian Backwood this winder is very solid and as you can see it holds 1000 feet of 250lb line no problem. If wound on tightly it could probably hold 2000 feet. The white decorative bits are beef bone inlays and the hook for securing the line (when you don't want it to pay out anymore) is also made of beef bone. The great advantage of a winder like this is it enables me to wind a kite down pretty quickly and easily. I just 'winch' it in hand over hand. The line goes on in a figure eight so there are not twists. Before I had to pull in the line with gloved hands and let it pile on the ground, then wind onto the halo reels once the kite was grounded. If the wind was strong the line could be hard to grip when pulling the kite down... not any more.

A few more...

Mon, 30 Jul 2007 08:50:07 GMT

I took a couple of hundred kite aerial photos over Miyazu Gardens last Friday. I've only just finished uploading them. Here's a few more keepers.