KITE AERIAL PHOTOGRAPHY
ideas & images & kits & equipment

by

BROOKS LEFFLER

The rest of this website is focused on pictures from the air, but I've taken many more ground-based panoramas than aerial ones, so this page will be devoted to them.

The first of these images was taken with a 4-megapixel camera, so it is neither as sharp nor as large as the later ones. Then I moved to a Nikon Coolpix 8700, which produced panoramas that are larger, sharper, and more impressive. Then I upgraded to a Nikon D50 SLR, which does even better images, and to a Nikon D40x, better still. All of the later images will take a long time to load. If you have a dial-up modem connection, I hope you'll have LOTS of patience — or will come back when you have a faster connection.

You'll need QuickTime to view these panoramas, which is a free download from Apple.

Click on an image below, and click & drag in the larger image with your mouse; zoom with shift and control keys.

Easy does it — move slowly or you'll be dizzy!

VIRTUAL REALITY

GROUND PANORAMAS

Tor House and Hawk Tower in Carmel, California, were built by hand by the late poet Robinson Jeffers as a home and studio, and his descendants still live in part of the house. The rest is open to the public.

I was not allowed to take pictures inside the fence.

Asilomar State Beach and Conference Center is a state-owned facility on Pacific Grove's western shoreline. The conference center is busy throughout the year, and the beach provides a great place to watch the sunset.

This was taken in January 2005.

San Francisco's historic Cliff House restaurant overlooks the busy Golden Gate and the ruins of Sutro Baths on one side and the 10-mile long Ocean Beach on the other. Architecturally, it's better inside than outside.

Just off the shore is Seal Rocks, home to California Sea Lions and many bird species.

Perkins Park in Pacific Grove was a labor of love for Hayes Perkins, who as a volunteer in the 1930s planted every plant by hand. The ground cover is mesembryanthemum, which forms a pink carpet each spring and cascades over the bluffs.

Colorado Springs is the home of the US Air Force Academy and snuggles right up to the front range of the Rocky Mountains. Within the city limits is a privately-owned park in Cheyenne Canyon called Seven Falls, for obvious reasons. An 8-story elevator inside the cliff gets you to this overlook. Seven Falls
Further down the Canyon in Colorado Springs is the Sculpture Garden at the home of the late Starr Kempf. He created huge kinetic metal sculptures that dance gracefully in the wind, but have attracted so many visitors that the city has asked the family to remove some of them. Sculpture

Just below the Continental Divide west of Boulder, Colorado, is the sleepy former mining town of Eldora.

This is the way the main intersection in front of the Gold Miner Hotel looked on the first Saturday in April 2005.

Each year during the Monterey Peninsula's Classic Car Week, the City of Pacific Grove is host to the Concours Auto Rally. All cars are welcome as long as they'll run. Cars are displayed on the street during the afternoon and then take a 5-mile tour of the Peninsula, ending back in PG for a barbecue dinner. Here's a varied group from the 2005 running of the event. AutoRally

In the northeast corner of Paris is La Villette, the former national stockyards, now a science park and entertainment center. The park is bounded on three sides by canals, still in commercial use. I took this from the quay in front of my hotel while recovering from jet lag on a misty November morning.

I submitted a night view of the same scene as my Best of the Year to the World Wide Panorama in 2005.

Paris-AM

In 2007, my son took me to a drum shop in Smyrna, Georgia, that gives new meaning to the term "speechless". I was a drummer in my youth, and here I was, awestruck in paradise.

I had not seen as many drums, cymbals and paraphernalia in my lifetime as there are in one room at Atlanta Pro Percussion.

DrumShop

The annual Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance is probably the finest collection of motor cars in the world, and owners and their rolling treasures come from everywhere to compete in classes for the coveted blue ribbons. You'd never guess from this crowds in this picture, taken in 2006, that the admission was $100 per person; it's increased since then.

I submitted another view of this event as my Best of the Year to the World Wide Panorama in 2006.

If you want still more VR panoramas, be sure to browse the site of the

WORLD WIDE PANORAMA

Panographers from around the world submit pictures on a predetermined theme each solstice and equinox — and some are simply stunning.

Questions about panoramas?

drop Brooks a note at POST OFFICE BOX 34, PACIFIC GROVE, CA 93950-0034.