Go fly a kite…and attach your camera for an aerial view.
September 15, 2010
When the fish don't bite--go fly a kite. And attach your camera for an aerial view.
In the late-afternoon shadow of the Montauk Lighthouse is Turtle Cove, a legendary surf-fishing beach. On its gravelly shore, I caught my first bluefish a million years ago. And there I’ve nailed dozens of keeper bass over the years. At this time of the fall season, it’s common for hardened surfcasters to be slinging lures in between the wave-riding surfers and the encroaching mosquito fleet of flyboats, shoulder-to-shoulder with day tripping touristas, whose Walmart gear invariably fails in the midst of a blitz for the ages, tangling lines left and right. But typically Turtles is pescoso: teeming with fish. So all is usually forgiven.
Not so much pescoso thus far this season, however. Mostly, all we’ve seen in TC is a lot of hot air. On a recent afternoon, the otherwise deserted TC was host to this intrepid photographer, floating his camera above it all by means of a kite. Turns out, this type of aerial photography has been around for a century or more. A kite-borne camera was used to photograph San Francisco in ruins after the 1906 earthquake. Nowadays, you can get some really high tech kite camera rigs if this is your thing. As an alternative to fish that aren’t there to be caught, it just might become mine.
San Francisco in ruins after the 1906 quake, as captured by a kite-borne camera.