One of the photographers on our team performs a unique form of photography. His name is Gary Howell and he uses a kite to provide aerial shots of events and projects at the church. In a previous post I included a shot at a baptism from high above the aquatic center. More recently he's been documenting the construction of a new Children's building at the CCM main campus. Last weekend I met up with him to see how he takes these amazing photos.
The kite camera consists of four main parts: the kite, the camera platform, the remote control, and, of course, the camera.
The kite is not your typical kite. It was noticeably larger than the standard recreational kite so that it can provide the lift needed to raise the camera and platform. Actually, Gary has several kites that can be used for different wind conditions. Obviously the kite has to be able to lift the camera in given conditions, but Gary mentioned that sometimes he has to use a kite with less lift when the conditions are particularly windy.
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Kite Setup |
Once the kite is setup, Gary preps the camera platform and camera. This is a multi-axis device that holds the camera and can be controlled remotely by a RC aircraft control unit. With the one controller, Gary can pan and tilt the camera to any angle, and can press a button to activate the camera shutter release. This whole platform is suspended from a harness that is attached to the kite's line, several yards down from the kite.
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Camera Platform and Remote |
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Attaching Camera Harness |
When the kite and platform are setup, Gary launches the kite and lets out some of the line. Once there is enough line let out, and the wind is providing enough lift, the platform harness is attached to the kite line and then let out to the desired height. At this point he can control the relative ground position of the kite by moving himself around the subject of the photo. He tries to position himself up-wind of the subject so the camera can point in the opposite direction of the line. This prevents the line from being in the shot.
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| Camera and Kite in Flight |
Once the kite and camera in the right position, Gary activates the shutter release. Since he can not see the results of the shots until the camera is brought back down, Gary methodically adjusts the pitch and angle while continually taking pictures. A typical shoot may result in hundreds of photographs. In fact he took over a thousand shots the day I went to watch the shoot. The results of this shoot and some previous weeks are shown below.
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Baptism from Above |
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| Children's Building - Shot 1 |
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| Children's Building - Shot 2 |
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| Taking It to a Higher Level |
If you're interested in this type of photography, check out some of the work being done by Gary, and other kite photographers around the web.
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