Kite Aerial Photography - Simon Harbord Gallery

Notes on Kite Aerial Photography: Others

Simon Harbord Gallery

My workhorse Stratoscoop flying at characteristic angle (OK, I tilted the camera a wee bit ...!)(25K jpg)

The kites I used were a custom Stratoscoop 3 (or 3.5 - I can't remember now) made by Greens kites in UK. A big lifter, not for bare hands, hence the winch, or on calmer days I used the Morgan megasled delta about 16-foot span. I also used a Cody, Pilot and Rokkakus and sundry deltas, but the Strat was the workhorse for most jobs.

Taken at McCauley Street School in Grimsby for their 50th Anniversary, I'm afraid the JPG format doesn't do it justice. This one's a self portrait, I'm standing at the point of the A ! (44K jpg)

My subject matter has been schools, factories, farms, private houses of the well-heeled. Also did some archeological work, using a waist mounted rig and low weight camera system for field walking for archeological sites, crop marks etc. (not crop circles,- that's another story, I nearly got involved, and thank God I didn't.) One of my favourite jobs was a school in England doing a celebration of their fiftieth anniversary, they got their groundsman ( is that an American translatable-who knows) to mark out the school field in front of the school with "50 YEARS" and all the kids came out and stood there spelling it out. Made a magic photo with the school in the background.

Village Fair, Keelby Lincolnshire, 1988. (45K jpg)

I know you have an interest in "different KAPs" the attached was taken about 1988 with a semi fisheye on the Olympus, location was a village fair in Keelby Lincolnshire. Rig was hung under a Morgan Megasled delta, a monster light wind lifter, most of the afternoon it was lofting a load of coloured streamers, but I figured "why not take some pictures?" so I attached the rig and shot off a roll of film. This was one of the results.

Taken in the village we used to live in, Keelby in Lincolnshire and was one of a set of village views I did. (60K jpg)

This shot was taken one bright and breezy winter morning when I launched the rig from a field near the centre of the village, that day everything seemed to work perfectly and out of a couple of rolls of film almost every shot was pin sharp - a pretty unique occurrence for me! The church, a medieval building, had just had a new extension on the south side completed when this photograph was taken.

A B&W house portrait (68K jpg)

One of the newer houses in our village, this was built by Chris Stones for his family. Chris runs a small company making superb traditionally crafted furniture, a couple of hundred yards further down the lane. This day the rig was hanging under the Megasled delta and the wind was sufficiently trustworthy that I later put the video camera up and took a whole half hour of video views. Viewing it later I knew the meaning of the words "motion sickness"..........

A B&W of a riding ring. (51K jpg)

This was one of the shots from a job I did at a riding school in the village of Laceby about five miles from where we lived. The wind was strong enough to warrant using the Stratoscoop and nice and steady, though I did have some (typical) problems launching the Strat. Once up though, it stayed up and steady throughout the shoot. I was able to paste together a lot of panoramic views and the shots came out well enough for good quality enlargements.

I've got heaps of others, and like most KAPers I've lots of pictures of grass and fields and trees and things at crazy angles - all part of the fun.

QUICK LINKS to other Simon Harbord Pages:

Introduction to Simon Harbord
Simon's KAP Rig
Simon's Guiding Light (an aiming device)
Simon's KAPisms

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