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The Vossen Media Team spends countless hours photographing every wheel model in a variety of finishes in our in-house studio. The Vossen Assets Page contains all of the most current branding elements, logos and files. If you have questions regarding any Vossen brand assets or photography, please email media@vossenwheels.com.
I turned up at my chosen site, I'd wanted to do this site for a while, an Iron Age Hill Fort. Nice and open interior but with a few trees on three sides and a drop off into a valley on the fourth. My last outing I'd reversed my line on my halo, so I did not have a clip on the line, I normally use heavy duty deep sea ones. However I found one in my bag, I quickly attached my line to the clip and attached the clip to my HQ2 Flowform. I set up my rig on the floor ready to attach, laided out everything ready to go. I'd attached a fuzzy tail and tried to fly the kite. The wind was gusty near the ground and after three attempts, removed the tail, too many low bushes and thorny brambles around.
Success, she flew, I let out about 70 feet of line before the HQ settled down. Brilliant, I waited about 5 minutes just watching it fly, only the fourth time out of the box and still not had a rig on it. Just as I turned to walk to the rig, the wind dropped for a split second and picked up with an almighty gust! The kite slammed back with a real snap and a bang. Then that heart stopping thing that all kite fliers dread. The kite parted company with the line!!!!
I watch the line fall for a split second in shock, before I kicked into gear and started running towards the edge of the drop off into the valley, just in time to see the HQ landing down in the valley in a wooded area, brilliant, the worst possible place. I could not leave my rig and other stuff where it was so chucked everything back into my bag, the line had tangled in the last 10 feet from the spring back shock, and the clip had failed. Dam and blast it! I then picked every thing up and walked to the edge of the embankment, noted that the kite was only just visible in the tree tops. Off I went down into the valley, only to realise that I could no longer see the HQ. Panick started to set in, I reached the edge of the wood, young growth birch with older pines.
By this time, I was sweating like a pig, my glasses started to fog up with the effort of climbing down. "Right the kite has got to be in this area", I said to myself. I walked in to the wood and started looking, half an hour of random walking later still no sign of it. So in an attempt to narrow down the area, I went back up the hill. Spotted a few trees in the general area and off I went again. As I walked down a path in the wood, a family stopped and I asked them If they had seen anything, no such luck. Only one thing for it, start a search pattern, walking back and forth across the slope, working my way down hill. On my third leg, bingo! Its was only feet from where the family had stopped, but it was up in the top of a pine tree.
I was breathing very hard, heart was pounding and was soaking wet by now and was getting dehydrated by the minute from the effort. I just started looking at the tree, was it climbable, maybe? The pine was a foot across at the base with lots of branches, I started testing the lower branches, snap, snap, snap. I stepped back a minute. "Hang on, you silly old fool, your 50 years old, slightly over weight and If you fall, there will not be anyone around to help!" Dam and blast again, "I'm not letting this one get away from me." A quick rethink, "What about snagging it with a karabina on a line? No, just too much tree in the way." Chill for a second. "I know, a birch sapling, out with my pen knife and down came down this very long and thin birch. Still not long enough, a second smaller sapling joined the first, trimmed off branches, all but one to form a hook. Tied the two saplings end to end, yes it was just long enough by standing tippy toed, arms out stretched. Spotted one of the bridle lines flapping away in the wind, my target, 5 minutes later I managed to snag it and started pulling, hoping that the kite was not well and truly entangled. No, it just slide through the branches right into my hands. Whoopee!!!!!!
A quick check and everything was fine, even had the remains of the clip still in place. Paced out the improvised hook, 25feet. I packed the kite away, and climbed back out of the valley. Half way up, my legs started to go all weak, the adrenalin gave out. I ended up, sitting down for ten minutes to take stock of what happen. I took another look at the clip, "hang on a mo, that is not the big, heavy duty one I normally use." In my haste to get going, I'd used a lower quality one that I normally reserve for attaching fuzzy tails. My own fault really, should take more care next time. Checked my watch, it had taken me the best part of an hour to recover my kite, I was totally spent, so I picked myself up and went home, picture less. At least I'll live to KAP again another day.
The Kite
HRE FF01 Flowform wheels
Front: 20x8.5
Rear: 20x10
Michelin Pilot Super Sport tires
Front: 235/35R20
Rear: 265/30R20
H&R Sport Spring kit
Front drop w/sport suspension 1.0"
Rear drop w/sport suspension 0.75"
Carbon Fiber BMW roundel emblems front and rear
Este é o mensageiro, usado para levantar uma pequena carga até próximo a pipa, neste caso; estou levantando um pequeno para-quedas com um saquinho de balas.
This is the messenger, used to raise a small load until near of the kite, in this case; I am raising small parachute with a small bag of sweets
Views taken as the sun set.
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The days grow shorter as summer draws to an end. This must come as something of a relief to the Snowy Plovers, Terns, Avocets, and other bayland birds as it marks the end of their long nesting season. It a relief to me as well because with the end of nesting season my Special Use Permit (nicely up to date) allows me to photograph more broadly in the South Bay wildlife refuge. In celebration, I had a coordination meeting this week with the managers of the South Bay Salt Pond Restoration Project followed by a photography session in the Eden Landing Ecological Reserve.
Eden Landing has seen rapid change during the last few years. Last year my photographs showed a large construction project to subdivide Salt Ponds E12 and E13 into an array of smaller managed ponds. These are to be kept at various levels of salinity, as though salt evaporation ponds, but with the goal of providing habitat rather than producing salt. The array of new ponds covers what was a bare plain five years ago in which one could see the faint traces of many 19th century salt ponds of a similar scale. I am interested in seeing how the landscape develops. Will the 19th century traces still be readable after the 21st century construction?
On this trip I had three separate photography sessions. The first, staring around 4 pm, involved a short hike along some of the new subdividing levees near the eastside construction yard. These new ponds were filled with a few inches of low salinity water covered with ample crops of cyanobacteria. By 5:30 pm I had packed up and relocated to the north bank of Mt. Eden Creek with the idea of sending a camera over the construction site of a new flow control structure on the west edge of Salt Pond E13. When that session was finished I relocated to the south end of Salt Pond E10 with the idea of photographing the marsh near the outlet of Salt Pond E9, some 500 feet away. That pond was restored to tidal flow a couple of years ago and has been going through an interesting metamorphosis.
All three sessions involved clean steady flights below a Sutton Flowform 30 kite. The subjects were interesting and the photographs turned out quite well. What could be better? It is nice to be getting underway again in the salt pond landscape.
I am taking these documentary photographs under a Special Use Permit from the California Department of Fish & Wildlife. Kite flying is prohibited over the Eden Landing Ecological Reserve without a Special Use Permit, as is access to this part of the Don Edwards National Wildlife Refuge.
The Vossen Media Team spends countless hours photographing every wheel model in a variety of finishes in our in-house studio. The Vossen Assets Page contains all of the most current branding elements, logos and files. If you have questions regarding any Vossen brand assets or photography, please email media@vossenwheels.com.