00184 National Geographic comes calling

Got a mail from National Geographic about the Rake Art, which was nice. this was the correspondence:

NG: "My name is Jenna Pirog and I work for a Photo Editor here
at National Geographic magazine. We found some of your rake pictures on Flickr and find them very intriguing.
Would you mind writing me back at ****** to discuss what size these files are, what kind of camera you use, etc.? We have a page called Visions of Earth that we think some of your photos may work for if they are the right size for production. I look forward to hearing from you. Sincerely, ** Photographic Coordinator National Geographic magazine"

I said: "Ooooooh, what a lovely idea, let's do it." (or words to that effect)

NG:"Hi Lenny,
This is a really wonderful idea and you have very striking photographs and make beautiful designs with the rake, but unfortunately the files just aren't large enough for our publication purposes. We require a digital file that is at least 20MB for our Visions of Earth section.
Good luck to you!
Sincerely, **"

Well, it was nice while it lasted, but really, how am I going to hoist a 12MP camera up there? No wait, I can do it, but how can I afford it? No wait, where can I get a 12 MP camera? What? Online?

Oh, ok.

00183 Tree thingy at Petit Port

Tree thingy

I can handle snatching an hour every now and again to do this sort of thing, but this is the only chance I've had in recent months to get the rake out. It's indicative of the situation that it's been taken from a staircases running up the cliff face and not from a kite.

Still, as long as I've got more ideas than time, it'll always be quality time when I get to the beach. The only thing is that I sort of promised that I wouldn't take the rake & kites to the beach together, because it rules me out of being sociable when I get there.

00182 Roquaine pooh stick

Roquaine pooh stick

It's been a while since I posted, but to be honest, things have been ticking along and I haven't had much of a chance to do anything vaguely imaginative. Bit of shooting (won a tankard - it's a keeper), bit of kitesurfing (jumping higher, getting better), but not much in the way of KAP, which is a shame. What I really need is to get the Maxi Dopero sorted out so that I can be confident that it'll work without ditching the camera.

Just this partially successful stick & leaf number to show for all the outings we've been on. Somehow I can't help but feel that winter will be more productive. Wierd.

00181 Gusty KAP

Boats

Gusty winds meant I couldn't risk getting out over the water to get teh kids jumping off the pier. Would have been good with the new camera. Soon as I've stabilised the Maxi Dopero, I'll be more confident and heading out over the water a bit more.

00180 Back on

Kites in Poole

After moving into the house, I'm back online and I'll be out posting up again.

Had a couple of sessions on the 11 meter - it's so well behaved - one at Poole harbour on the way back from holiday and one at Ladies. I'll have the jump timing nailed soon. Wish I'd bought a 13, but with the Flexi 15 I though I'd get away with it. Truth be told, I'm going nowhere near a 'C' kite as long as I can avoid it.

00179 Rips

Rips

Ripped me bloney kite. Fixed it with spinaker tape, wonderful stuff.

00178 Weeks go by

Fort Richmond

With all the house stuff going on, I haven't really had time to update.
No rake art time, and only managing to snatch a couple of KAP sessions. The Maxi Dopero is misbehaving a little (maybe because the winds have been very flukey lately), which means that I can only lift the rig in strong winds. Got a reasonable one of Fort Richmond, mind - but only because it was nearby.
Kitesurfing was great about two weeks ago. Two brilliant days on the trot with the Instinct. Sadly the last session saw me put some rips in the canvas and I'm still wondering whether to send it away for repairs, or just tape it up.

00177 Rakeart goes BoingBoing

Cara in the middle

Well the rake art shots made it onto BoingBoing. Now, the wierd thing is that I don't know how popular BoingBoing is, but I get the impression that it's quite prolific. I've subscribed to it for a year or so and it was Dave (aka Mobilexile) who Flickrmailed me and pointed it out.
Either way, it's on another blog and it's right here.
Whatever it means, I certainly got a sudden surge of interest in the set.

00176 Rocks n' waves n' forts n' kitesurfin'

Rocks n' waves

So I got out to kitesurf in the morning and KAP when the kids went to bed.
The kitesurfing was mostly good. Man, I could do with a bigger kite. On the up side I could finally ride Vazon in a Swerly. Up and over the waves. Bit shakey, but with a bit more power it'd be spot on.
The KAP went really well. Went back to Fort Hommet to do it with a higher grade camera. Got this great shot of the waves n' Rocks, plus a couple of good ones of the fort. Now all I need is some new subject matter.

00175 Instinct flying

Went out yesterday in wind that Mike could only just get going in on his 14m Halo. I got out the 11m and managed to get going with a big board and alot of kite movement. And apart from a relaunch problem, which I put down to loads of seaweed on the lines and very low winds, it was a great success. Sunday promises more wind. I really want to see what it does in a hooley.

00174 Wake up

Mike's Jetski

After a full day doing the PTA thing and waiting for wind that never comes, Mike very kindly took us out wakeboarding again. Both of us got a go and the conditions were perfect. I even managed to Ollie after jumping to line up for the jump in the opposite direction and vice versa a few times - can't be botheres to make it any clearer than that.

00173 Ozone Instinct

Ozone Instinct

My new kite arrived on Thursday and its inaugural month will no doubt be heralded by a total lack of wind.
Still, it is beautifully made and the attention to detail and build quality is superb, which is a miracle because it's usually all hype.
Although it is a bow kite, it doesn't have a bridle per se. Intead it has a fifth line that splits near the kite, with lines running out to the leading edge, center strut and the two wing tips. Allegedly it will never inver, a problem that bow kite suffer from at times.
I just cant wait for a challenging and gusty day. Bring it on.

00172 A magazine comes calling

I got a Flickrmail from Andrea Ferrer about printing some rake art in a new magazine called "Pretty Fcuking Good Magazine", which I guess can't be bad. We'll see how it pans out. What I really need is to do some more stuff. I've got a couple of ideas, but it's a worrying thing that if you plan too much with these things, they never turn out as nice as the thing you planned. It seems that it's usually best to just go out there and do it spontaneously.

00171 Richmond slipway again

Richmond slipway

Just wanted to test out the new camera against the old by comparing like subjects. Well, it's miles better. It would have been nice at some other time of day (in the evening maybe), but it still works quite well. The other image (taken in November last year) is here.

00170 Rake art in third blog shocka

The rake art set has appeared in another blog, this time its Lost art. Cool

00169 The Channel Island Championship

Taking the whole thing down

Having qualified to shoot in this individual event, we spent the weekend shooting. 300, 500 and 600 yards on Saturday in Guernsey and then off on the evening ferry to spend the night in the Jersey clubhouse, after which we shot at 900 and 1000 yards.
Did reasonably well, especially considering I'd never even seen a 900/1000 yard range - man, those targets are hard to see that far out, it's no wonder so many people fired on the wrong targets.
The team event (which I wasn't in, thankfully) was Jerseys win. Now, I have dropped ten points out of 50 on a very, very bad day. They dropped ten points out of 1200. Not bad. Bet they were smug about that.

00168 Rakes

Mmmmmmmmmmm rakes.
Perhaps I need to get out more.

00167 Whispy

Whispy

Got out on Friday to do some rake stuff. QUite like this one, but I'm sure that the larger the image, the more whispy and uninteresting it will become. Also the larger the piece, the more time it takes and that is something I never have enough of to complete these things.
Caroline saw the kite on the beach and came over with the kids, so she and Jack are in the middle of this one.
I got a response from Geoff Manaugh, who runs BldgBlog, a lovely blog dealing in architecture in all it's forms and interpretaions. He's posted up a very flattering entry about the rake art and was good enough to ask permission to publish the images.
He in turn, apparently found the images through another blog by the name of Spy's Spice. Here's the article.

In other news, the shooting started really badly with a 31-1, but after a few words of friendly advice about butt placement (fnarrr), I turned up a 35-4 and a respecatble 33-4. Hope it picks up for the Jersey match next week. Signs are good.

00166 New kite and scope

My gear

So I'm now nearing the end of my quest for shooting equipment and all I'm missing is the rifle - but I'm really not into getting one of those right now (I wouldn't want to keep it in the house anyway). Dave Jory sold me an old bashed up scope for spotting and it does the job very nicely. I shot last Saturday and came up with a 46-2 and a 47-4. I've got one more week before we go to Jersey, so I think improvement would be a good thing.
On the other hand I'm selling my Strike 2s and hopefully getting an 11 meter Ozone Instinct. It's anew bow kite and so far it's been raved about. Now I just have to hope that Ebay comes up trumps on the selling front.

00165 Two things (one of them a thingy)

Wheeee and the compass thingy

Covering two (or perhaps even three) of the obsessions I currently entertain:

1. Rakeart - Grande Roques. I was walking down the beach with a rake, headding for the nice flat featureless sand further down the beach and decided to stop on the way to try out a couple of things. Naturally I didn't get any further and ended up drawing the compass thingy (I've got to find a more suitable name for these ... thingys. See, that also brought the KAP into it. The Maxi Dopero was flying like a dream, so it seemed rude not to capture a few shots from the air. The fact that I roped Meriel and Cara into the shot was just a bonus.
Really pleased with this one, but I think things are going to get better. It's all down to confidence with the rake, and that's going to come from practice.

2. Shooting - Fort le Marchant. Up and down today. 32, 35, 32. So 99 out of a possible 105. I just couldn't seem to get them in, although they were all really, really close. I'll take some advice and improve.