It wasn’t much of a KAP session… and we were back at the location we had flown over so many times before that we could make a fairly long movie just using the photos as frames. But this time was different – the old guy was back in the sky!
This venerable blue Rokkaku was the very first kite Janez Vizjak a.k.a. Dr.Agon built after we got infected by the idea of taking pictures from high above with a kite (the first attempt went … well, okay). It’s almost six years old now, 200 cm high and 160 cm wide, and it has literally hundreds of flights on its tally. From the first flight in Bohinj to the Statue of Unity in Gujarat, from Portugal to Croatia, from Italy to Bosnia and Herzegovina, it flew over natural wonders, picturesque towns, and archaeological sites, crashed into rivers and seas, braved too strong winds for its frame, and rode the thermals far and away …
Two years ago we felt that we are pushing it too hard. The fabric was stretched and wrinkled, the spars had reached the end of their useful life, the fittings were getting loose … So Janez made another Rokkaku (and another, and another, and …), and the Venerable Blue went into retirement – ready to become the centrepiece of the Slovenian Kite Museum collection.
However, looking at it limp on the ground was hurting our hearts. So it got a makeover, new spars, new edges – and he gladly went up again!
He flew majestically, carrying a picavet with a camera like it’s nothing, staying high above Ljubljana Marshes landscape park like nailed to the sky – the sky it had always belonged to.
Enjoy this selection of photos from the first of the rest of its flights. And raise a glass to the Old Guy in the Sky. His aerial adventures are far from over! 😉
Kite aerial photos shot with Ricoh GR1 on The Venerable Blue.
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