Urban kite aerial photography is hard (except for István, but he’s different), and while we’ve tried to lift our kite within Ljubljana proper a lot of times, we can claim only one partial success (besides, flying in the open Tivoli park doesn’t really count as urban KAP).
A city just isn’t made for serious kite flying. Parks have tall trees, squares have tall buildings around, there are power lines and antennae and chimneys and police that would just love to confiscate and eat your kite. Plus, the wind above a city is seldom similar to the wind within a city; the turbulence can be extreme, the streets lead the winds astray, and the air pockets are preying on a kite even 100 meters up in the sky. If there is wind at all, and if it blows in a right direction (it never does).
Urban KAP is a nervy, almost-dangerous, and unpleasant affair.
On the other hand, Ljubljana is a City of Dragons, and since in the noble Slovenian language dragons and kites share the same word, zmaj, we thought kites could somehow defy all the of urban KAP dangers and obstacles, and we could catch Ljubljana from above in the most gracious way – with a kite.
And we kinda did it … because this time most of the things mostly went rather well. Behold, Ljubljana!
The wind was almost unbelievably generous, aligning itself perfectly with the Ljubljanica river between the Triple bridge and the Dragon bridge (yes, dragons), giving a clear path up between the linden trees on one bank and Plečnik UNESCO masterpiece on the other bank. And it was neither too strong nor too gusty, inviting the kite to try and fly above the old roofs.
We went to the Butchers bridge to try our luck – and the kite soared! And it went higher! And it punched through the first, the second and the third turbulence layer like nothing!
But the light was … eaten by the dragons. Our venerable Nikon P330 was really struggling with catching precious photons to not much avail. This is one raw photo from the session:
As you can see (or, better, not see) there is a lot of photoshop in these photos …
Then it became a bit crowded on the bridge, and the wind was getting more and more annoyed, so we called it quits and pulled The Original Blue rokkaku down. Not much height, not much wind, not much good impressions of our city from above …
But – we did it! We now know it’s possible; we have a spot right in the city centre (and a new marker on our KAP map!), and we will lift a kite here again, in better light, with a better camera … and fly it much much higher! 🙂
Until then …
Kite aerial photos shot with Nikon P330 on The Original Blue rokkaku by Dr.Agon kites.