Sue G Photo Learning Log: Portsmouth International Kite Festival

For this exercise I had to set myself an assignment and photograph it. The idea was to tell a story in a set of pictures between 5 and 15 in number. I decide to capture the colour and drama of the Portsmouth Internatrional Kite Festival. This festival takes place every year over a weekend and attracts kite fliers from four continents.Checking out the festival website and programme indicated a range of activities e.g. the Kite Team Follie who fly dual line kites choreographed to music and a range of spectacular 3D kite demonstrations as well kites of all sizes flown by keen kite fliers of all ages. The open location of the festival i.e. Southsea Common would allow easy movement round the site and demonstrations. I took a telescopic lens and tripod as well as a 18-55mm lens knowing that I'd need both types of lens to capture the event.

The weather on the day was very windy which though good for most kite flying activities made taking photographs a real challenge especially when using the telescopic lens on the tripod.Some kites like the Japanese Edo kites made of paper were not flown as they were too fragile for the speed of wind being registered.

My plan was to capture the activity of kite flying rather than a series of shots showing the different kinds of kites on view which while visually interesting would not in themselves provide a narrative picture essay. On the day, the photographic challenge became two fold i.e. the high winds moving the balloons around made composition difficult and the large scale shot needed to capture the choreographed i.e. kite fliers and kites in action. I tried to capture a number themes - choreographed kite flying ; two folk struggling to put a kite up and the the emergence of a large show kite ...comparing the results afterwards, I eventually opted for the show kite sequence' below :

P427: f5.6 @ 1/640 ISO 100 200mm WB Daylight

Huge show kites such as this attractive Tiger kite flown by the Al Farsi Kite Team from Kuwait are always a popular sight at festivals.

P418 : f5.6 @ 1/800 ISO 100 70mm WB Daylight

Like any kite, these kites need to be carefully laid out flat as the first stage of getting the kite ready for flying - not an easy task in a high wind on Southsea Common.