Notes on Kite Aerial Photography: Photo Gallery
Son
Charlie rigs his El Toro in a ground-based image (31K jpg, Canon
28-105-mm zoom, November 1997).
For
the second year now the young Bentons are participating in the Junior Sailing Program run by the Richmond Yacht Club.
This is a delightful program run by Larry McCollum and Tom Carlon
from October to April of each year. Charlie and Thomas each have
a diminutive El Toro, the standard dingy for the first years of
the program. Later they graduate to Lasers. The juniors meet at
the yacht club every Sunday morning and have their boats rigged
by 9:30 am. The remainder of the day is spent in instruction and
sailing. Parents volunteer time to the program for some days and
on others they are left to their own devices -- like as not the
flying of kites in my case.
The El Toro is designed to be
entertaining and easy to transport. Most yacht clubs in San
Francisco Bay use El Toros for their junior sailing programs. The
one design class goes back to the 1930's. It was intended to be a
boat that could be built in a backyard from 4x8 plywood. Today
many El Toros are fiberglass, but wooden boats are still in
abundance, and still competitive in races. The length overall
comes out to be just under 8 feet. In California (and most other
states) the size means it does not need to be registered with the
related fees and paperwork.
Charlie and Thomas each
have a well-worn El Toro. The Richmond program does not maintain
its own fleet of boats, instead preferring participants to have
their own. Their reasoning is that starting with their own boats
instills a sense of pride in the young sailors (quite so!) and
offers them an opportunity to learn useful rigging and repair
skills (doubly so!)
The
Richmond Yacht Club's fine outdoor decks (at left) cover three
levels including the dock and on the right El Toros round the
mark in an informal race (44K jpg left and 25K jpg right, Canon
24-mm, November 1997).
So it is not unusual for
me to find myself out at the yacht club with a bit of time on my
hands. On such occasions up goes a kite. These shots provide plan
views of the yacht club's very pleasant outdoor decks (with El
Toros on the lowest dock) and the El Toros under sail. I plan to
shoot another roll of the El Toros racing. The image to the right
would probably have worked out much better with a 50-mm lens as
opposed to the 24-mm lens used.
Tom,
the intermediate group instructor, peers up while stowing his El
Toro on his pickup truck and, on the right, full scale sailboats
lend a sense of scale to the El Toros (25K jpg left and 32K jpg
right, Canon 24-mm, November 1997).
I was wandering around
the parking lot when I took this shot of Tom loading his El Toro
in the back of his pickup truck. The little boats are nicely
portable. The plan view of "A" dock on the right
provides an interesting sense of the El Toro's small scale by
comparing them to larger boats in their slips. It is a bit tough
to tuck one of the larger boats in the back of a pickup truck.
A
shot of the yacht club's front lawn where sails are often folded.
Below the American flag the folding of an El Toro sail is in
progress (40K jpg, Canon 24-mm, November 1997).
There is something challenging
about placing the camera rig next to the top of a flagpole. I
think it is because flagpoles provide a target that is relatively
easy to approach and the flag a bit of animated color. While I
have dozens of such images I've decided that don't really like
them that much. I will continue to take them anyway because they
are just plain fun -- and provide useful practice in maneuvering
near fixed objects. In this image the kids that were following me
around the parking lot are gathered at the base of the flagpole.
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All rights reserved. Revised: Saturday, October 06, 2001
URL:
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