Selected Kite Images

From Past Adelaide Kite Festivals

This site has published quite a number of kite images from the Adelaide International Kite Festival. Each year I take a different approach to presenting a photographically-illustrated account of the event. This page is simply an attempt to pull out a number of interesting but previously unpublished kite pictures covering the entire period my family has been attending the event. Up to 2011 anyway.

Just a small number of images are presented for each year the festival was held, but I have been more generous with the sizes this time.

Due to jetty renovations, no festival was held in 2010. Also, in 2009 all imagery not already published was unfortunately lost in a hard drive crash. We had backups for the other years.

Our camera in 2007 was originally bought for around $400 some years previously. And it was quite pathetic compared to current models in both resolution and capturing color!

However, from 2008 onwards we have been using a Canon Powershot A460 with 4x optical zoom. Not impressed? Well, it might be a very modest low-end digital camera, but in brightly lit conditions it has produced a tremendous amount of great kite imagery! It has been well worth the $160 or so we paid. We snap our own kites from time to time as well.

Kite Images From 2007

A couple of these are on a tilt. This is a technique my wife favors for taking kite photos. In fact she may have taken all of these, although I have cropped them a little. This was the old camera.

Long kite train in a very fresh breeze

Another Taiwanese kite train, plus a few large inflatables

Some of the more impressive show kites

Another perspective of one of the kite trains

Kite Images From 2008

The following sequence of photos starts with a close-up of an unusual kite design. It shares some similarities with a Rokkaku, but has curved leading and trailing edges, and quite a few light horizontal spars. Interesting!

From there, the sequence steps back further and further away from the kites. The last one says 'there's a kite cloud over there...'

Unusual - many horizontal spars

Some large 'soft' kites

All very nautical - including a sail-boat on the sea

Satisfaction for the festival organisers - kites of all shapes and sizes

Kite Images From 2011

A fairly random selection of shots here, including a couple of stunt kites for a change. I'm hardly ever satisfied with the shot as originally framed. Hence most of these are cropped down to improve the composition and sometimes to highlight detail in the kites by enlarging them a bit.

The lolly-dropper kite - excitement for the kids

Dual line stunt kite hovering over the sand

A 2-liner posing with a single-liner - both Deltas

One of the coolest large inflatables, a frill-necked lizard

There was a more serious photographer snapping kite pics while we were on the Semaphore jetty in 2011... 

I had noticed this guy using a mono-pod to steady his pricey-looking digital camera. Is that what you call a tripod with one leg? Do photographers remove the legs one at a time as they get better? I don't need any. Anyway ;-) there I was, a few minutes later, with all thoughts of mono-pods gone...

I was concentrating on zooming in on a high-flying kite. KA-CHEESH (fake shutter sound, sampled from a real camera) ... BZZZZZZUP (noisy cheap zoom mechanism) ... KA-CHEESH KA-CHEESH (rotate to portrait orientation) KA-CHEESH KA-CHEESH KA-CHEESH ... BZZZZZZUP.

Pausing for a moment, I looked across to see the same guy, giving me a slightly bemused look... Was he thinking 'so much enthusiasm, what a crappy camera...' I don't know, and never will. One day we will invest in a more capable camera! We will continue to add to the sum of interesting kite photos on the Web.

A Video...

Just to add a bit of movement, here's a video from the 2008 event....

It's fun to photograph your own kites from time to time too. I've been re-creating the classics for many years. For example, diamonds and deltas.

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